Outlined in hotel neon,

the swan-dive lady was mounted

on the tallest cement pole.

She was Meridian’s commercial grace,

a svelte beacon out classing

the strip’s golden arches,

Big Boy, even the Texaco star.

Her perfect full-pieced, bathing-suit figure

was suspended in flight above

the city’s only chlorine pool.

Even after the Plantation Inn

was condemned, and the pool cracked

into a plaster spider web

snaring leaves and burger wrappers,

she remained my idol.

I prayed to be that beautiful

billboard woman whose alluring pose lasted

through bad weather and bankruptcy,

whose sole purpose was to be a body

that meant vacancy--sleep here.

Blair Hobbs

“Parkway Sign” was originally published by the Jefferson City Broadside Society. Sponsored by the University of Mississippi’s English Department, the Jefferson City Broadside Society selects a single poem and publishes 250 copies. By displaying the poems in public spaces, the Broadside editors seek to make poetry a part of our everyday landscape.