OUR RUSTBELT HOMETOWN HAS BEEN SHRINKY-DINKED

into talking points again & my heartland pride is acid-washed and cuffed

and worth more worn ironically & I’ve reverse yellow-brick-roaded from

the big city to this speedlimitless backroad & these gold-drunk sycamores

& we don’t crank out speedsters anymore so The Crossroads of America

just means Keep On Passing Through. I’m used to it. We’re children of the

dent corn & the bonafides atop our bestsellers declaring our lives “stark!”

and “bracing!” come two to a pack like toothbrushes & yes we have those.

Still my shift clutching my sorry little head in my “bleak!” and “grim!”

hands outside grubby shutdown factories doesn’t start for a few more hours

& I don’t punch in until sunrise at the assembly line where we cry chunky

tears of praline pie & lost opportunity into little Pyrex tubes to mail to the

shiny-haired Democrats & so I have time to tell you that when two things

that were once in contact remain so even after they’re far apart it’s called

sympathetic magic & I’ve got divine correspondence with my neck of the

woods & when we grasp each other’s collars from far flung towns that’s

charm at a distance. If I brewed potions I’d stir in our tree frogs’ spring

chirp & if I had a talisman it’d be a Dyngus Day pussywillow branch & if I

had a poppet I’d tuck her in under an album quilt I pieced myself & the truth

is that leaving home is like sea monkeys; it looks nothing like we were

promised.

OUR RUSTBELT HOMETOWN HAS BEEN 

SHRINKY-DINKED

into talking points again & my heartland pride is acid-washed and cuffed

and worth more worn ironically & I’ve reverse yellow-brick-roaded from

the big city to this speedlimitless backroad & these gold-drunk sycamores

& we don’t crank out speedsters anymore so The Crossroads of America

just means Keep On Passing Through. I’m used to it. We’re children of the

dent corn & the bonafides atop our bestsellers declaring our lives “stark!”

and “bracing!” come two to a pack like toothbrushes & yes we have those.

Still my shift clutching my sorry little head in my “bleak!” and “grim!”

hands outside grubby shutdown factories doesn’t start for a few more hours

& I don’t punch in until sunrise at the assembly line where we cry chunky

tears of praline pie & lost opportunity into little Pyrex tubes to mail to the

shiny-haired Democrats & so I have time to tell you that when two things

that were once in contact remain so even after they’re far apart it’s called

sympathetic magic & I’ve got divine correspondence with my neck of the

woods & when we grasp each other’s collars from far flung towns that’s

charm at a distance. If I brewed potions I’d stir in our tree frogs’ spring

chirp & if I had a talisman it’d be a Dyngus Day pussywillow branch & if I

had a poppet I’d tuck her in under an album quilt I pieced myself & the truth

is that leaving home is like sea monkeys; it looks nothing like we were

promised.