I pull a thistle from the dirt
in the middle of Texas,
I peer over the edge of Lover’s Leap
and count beer cans and condoms,
I leave my footprint in a creek bed.
In the middle of Texas,
my uncle sits me down on his couch
and says, “I need to tell you my dream
about the son I never knew.
I loved his mama by the ocean
and his mama married a sailor
and never recognized me
when we flirted over beers
just a few years later
in that bar in Denver.”
Is he trying to tell me
that every son is lost?
In the middle of Colorado,
I sleep in a haunted bed,
lightning dances on twitchy legs
through the valley that cradles me.
In the middle of Colorado,
I learn to spell A-L-A-B-A-M-A.
A spell, a spell,
and time is not itself
and you are not yourself
in the middle of Alabama—
there is no middle, just a red dirt road
that ends at an abandoned still.
In the middle of where you don’t need to be,
you’re holding a drinking straw
that’s split up both sides.
There’s nothing in the middle of that straw
so let’s chuck it out the car window
while Daddy’s not looking
as we drive along the coast
all night to Louisiana
where water swells over sand bars
that were islands through marshes
chopped up by shipping channels
where water is all there will be
where the middle keeps backing away