i
it’s hard not to make up stories
about empty places—
i can take you down the Sunfield road
sometime
and lie to you for hours.
that’s real Michigan, after all—
cherry pie, the maw of the abyss,
the kind of thing i wish you understood.
but Sunfield’s fine, it’s a place for small dreams
and i have small dreams—
no ambition whatsoever.
ii
i remember the last thing i wanted—
it was years ago, and i had it for a while
but you know how life can be—
the way a person’s made—
life gets away from you
for a while.
that starry night in Asheville
the campsite—do you remember?—
the one above the freeway,
i knew then.
iii
even my words are smaller.
i tell myself: let me write
an ode to so and so
and i think of her name—
what
could i possibly add?
iv
i was going to write this too:
that i need to be where
no one can find me,
but you know as well as i do—
i already am.
