【by Reese San Diego】

in middle of somewhere, midwest
there’s a stack of pancakes thick
like denim overalls

the bacon and eggs are frying on
a black top that faces a cornfield,
where thirteen-year-olds wave
at truck drivers, and beg them
to honk their horns—
the next shiny thing since the football team
won the homecoming game.

land so flat you could hurt your tailbone just
thinking of staying for a while.

there’s newspapers
littered with names of neighbors,
read by men in flannel button-down shirts.
they’re drinking bitter coffee in identical cups
served by women in starch-white aprons,
with hair that stops at their ears.

there’s a group of girls
loitering in the gas station parking lot.
their hair: straw-like, golden
like hay barrels scattered in a field.
they’ll go to college in-state
and come back for reunions.
wear their Panther Pride
like an heirloom.
till they don an apron
and cut their hair.

there’s space,
and lots of it.
so open, so bare
you can always see
what’s ahead of you—
know where you’ll be
for the rest of your life.