You Know You Can’t Go Home

When you pause on page forty-
seven of The New Yorker
looking at a photo of a Russian
ballerina, Anzhelina Vorontosova.
You shouldn’t be reading this, you are
the humble seed of a teamster and a barmaid,
grown alongside cannabis hid in rows of corn,
where a boy never danced or picked a flower
unless it was to trap a girl. Anzhelina
couldn’t be explained inside Monroe County,
Illinois. If I had to, this is how I’d try: A single
line as perfect as a girl’s stone knots of knee,
shoulder, elbow, and wrist can make it.
The pink dress, a blooming that must signal
something tragic. The stems moving
in three directions all witching for water.

Immersion

The chatter of the chipping hammer,
my first foreign language
learned when I left
behind a brainy dimpled blonde
decoding the genome
for nowhere oil town Oklahoma.
Finally doing the work
my dead father did, and welders’
sparks fell like a thousand
shooting stars, singeing overalls
I swore I’d never wear.
All winter I shook
myself to sleep at night,
thin-walled, two-bit room,
careful not to bite my tongue.

Let Me Give You a Tour of the Place

Those old photos mark how far
I’ve swum. Those aren’t buoys,
they’re sea turtles and you should
hear their clicking, croaking song.
On that beach you ran topless,
baited me to pull the horizon
closer to the sand with a simple rope.
No umbrellas swirling with wind
in our lukewarming glasses.
No sandcastle gargoyles warding
off doubts, debtors, and should-ofs.
There, that’s the hotel where you will
leave me with less echo than
a falling coin makes, Dopplered,
fading into the hallway, past
ten-years-ago me, coming to a full stop,
silent at the foot of the concierge.