Something about the maniacal extremes
Of the seasons, the opaque darkness
Of night and the intense
Bloodlusting of the hunt,
.
Seemed to categorize this
Mid-bowling-alley expanse of
Metaphorical hardwood between
Ohio and Chicago.
.
The fat people stomping angrily
And playing lottery tickets motif
Was strong and robust
When my family moved me here
From Pennsylvania when I was six,
.
The feeling then ensuing of
Being a piece of food that is cooked,
In a low, flat domicile,
A “Tombostone” pizza,
Perhaps.
.
Elkhart, Gary and Kokomo
Routinely flood the “worst cities” lists,
In Elkhart I hear a dude pronounce “pasta”
Like “last,” I see unspeakable things
Out in the grocery store parking lot,
I hear swells of commiseration from the townspeople
At the fact that I have moved there.
.
Upon NIL,
The local university
Rises to undeniable dominance,
Tom Petty sings of the supreme, vivified regality
Of the women,
Bob & Tom offer utterly, comedically invincible tidbits of
Juvenile nonsense,
.
A security guard
At the country club where I work
Gets homicidally jealous of me
When I discuss something work-related
With the female dishwasher
Who’s extremely ugly.
.
Well, I have a confession to make.
.
I never wanted to leave.
.
I wanted to be a mailman,
Out in the 12-degree, windy days of winter,
Out in the baking summers,
And I wasn’t even envisioning these fabled “women”:
.
I wanted to walk an old lady across the street,
I wanted my dad to take me to the house of another crazy old lady
Who owned six cats and three birds,
.
I wanted another old, Negro stranger
To start talking to me about God
And about people
In the Blimpie connected to the gas station,
.
I wanted to see another sunset,
Get another look at that pinned-up
Ball of fire up in the sky,
Half-mocking and half-jealous,
Rendering the entire landscapes of our existences as
Starkly apart from what they were one hour before.
.
It’s a fatal enterprise
That strangely
Offers a man all he needs.