some signs

i saw these signs while wandering around yesterday, and i had my hands on the steering wheel so i couldn't take a picture.

'fallow deer 4 sale' - handwritten on white cardboard in blood red ink, out in hunter country where the only reason the deer cadavers don't litter the roads beside broken fenders is because the hunters emerge every autumn to pepper the bushes with buckshot and line their homes with dead body parts. 'fallow' refers to how a field is left barren, unfertilized, and un-agriulturated. how odd to sell deer for the express purpose of raising them on a farm and calling them 'fallow'.

on another country road in a country town, a big yellow warning sign - the kind usually reserved for a silhouette of a deer or pedestrians crossing - six letters gave a strange warning. "C H U R C H". apparently, out here, the churches might sneak into the roads and cause accidents. i guess they're trying to hurry along the little disasters that turn a heart to the Almighty. Broken cars, and broken bones, and then the victim prays for salvation.

on a major highway, in the fallow little spot of city, there was an empty sign above an abandoned gas station. the high pole loomed high above all the other signs around, but there wasn't even the ghost of the panel where the company name used to be. white metal outlined an empty space where a white cross like a windowpane held the shape. i stared at it as long as i could, but i didn't see what was on the other side of the window if it wasn't just the sky.

look up, what do you see? a white cross framed in daylight. a fallow spot for sale, and a holy sign.