Driving West
Jan Wiezorek
The old man in the west
will say you are unwelcome. “Hey!”
he will say, in a tone, eastern.
Metal will rust,
pigeonholed, chicken-wired.
Far west will still move farther.
Rust will silhouette
in nature’s shelf,
asymmetrical and lonely.
Look at negative space, angles,
crescents, conglomerates. Skulls,
with no chrome here.
“So, this is what the west is like,”
the tourist will say. Life in flesh,
bags of skin hoping.
One bone of mountaintop
will make you present
to no one.
You will largely be unknown
and still possible, we will
think—inside and out.
Stretch out your neck.
Rust will move sore ankles
and kneecaps struggling
for food. Face east when
the time comes, even
if you attain only part
of it, or most of it,
or none of it. Spend time
in the west with someone.
“I was born a hundred years
too late,” father will say,
driving west.
Jan Wiezorek writes from Barron Lake in Michigan. He has taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and writes for The Paper in Buchanan, Michigan. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The London Magazine, Cabildo Quarterly, Yes Poetry, L’Ephemere Review, Leaping Clear, and THAT Literary Review, among other print and online journals. Jan is author of Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011) and holds a master’s degree in English Composition/Writing from Northeastern Illinois University.