This is how we live on earth, a flock of sparrows,

the darkness…                                   

                                            —Ilya Kaminsky

If, for example, you lived

in Terre Haute, Indiana—

low country, high earth,

plain language and low-count

cotton sheets, quick

masturbation, loneliness

smoothed out

with the blankets.

How you were

hungry and the kitchen’s bare

banquet was a heel of cheese, some eggs.

You were stone glint

in the land of newly paved

roads.  You repainted

the banister, hung

the bird-feeder,

repotted the azalea,

life comes.

How at a certain

time of day arose

a faded phenomena

of pornographic memories, ie:

they really happened.  Love

in Chanel No. 5, red lipstick

and flip flops

with your smallest skirt. 

Love in the mini-mart buying cheese popcorn.

You licked his fingers,

saved the receipt.

In his new Ford

he let you practice turning

in the parking lot of the Super K,

you turned left again and again

as one does what one must.

Predilections for a youth culture,

Maggie May, on the radio,

his leather jacket hung by the door.

In the dim light of the hall you stepped

out of your pants and in your socks

he bed you down on the floor. 

That was Terre Haute, solid earth,

longevity was simply years

before you, not yet knowing the bitter

wave, the bait, the wait. 

Isolation in two-lane blacktop.

In the flicking drone you dozed

your Russian troops, your winter fires,

your bowls of porridge,

bloodless victories of canary wars

and woke in time for Oprah.  Yes this

was Terre Haute, was a microwaved Tolstoy

dream, a winter of chicken cutlets and bulk

cartons of Marlboro lights, chain smoking quiet

nights of Lipton tea.  Oh Terre Haute, plastic

snowflake earth, un-packaged solitude,

sleeping Tolstoy sanity.

If, for example, you lived

in Terre Haute, Indiana

and wanted to leave, where

could you possibly go, all

of prime time America in

that developed earth?

Dear footprint of the prairie,

you could be

anywhere, humming

the same stupid song,

kicking an empty can

down an empty street

under an empty sky.

Terre Haute, there is

no other earth.  Never having seen  

the sea, fumbling around in the dark,

this is it then, life.