Like crawling into a forest at night, that station-
wagon, as piney, as vast. Branches shushing.
You could spend your entire childhood
in the way-back. Buzzes fade up front,
where beltless adults murmur and smoke
after unfurling musty sleeping bags
in the trunk, mine printed red, white, and blue
in senseless zigzags, with a sharp zipper.
Numberless cousins nested there, lulled
to sleep as soon as the big car creaked
onto the parkway, green like a pine forest
of the mind. Unfurled on a musty sleeping bag,
I wouldn’t sleep for years. The stars
are such old ideas, suggesting patterns but
refusing to connect the dots. The future rumbles
beneath us all. I can hear it when no one talks.
Lesley Wheeler
Lesley Wheeler’s new books are her fifth poetry collection, The State She’s In, and her first novel, Unbecoming. Her work appears in Ecotone, Crab Orchard Review, The Common, and other magazines, and she is Poetry Editor of Shenandoah.
Latest posts by Lesley Wheeler (see all)
- Gran Torino Gigan - June 5, 2020
- Even Wheels Have Edges - February 9, 2020
