Instructions on How to Leave a Town

now you have to go back through Ohio just to manage a few sweaters because

it’s getting cold out there

pack two grey-green duffels / most of your clothes are torn

what else do you have to show for yourself

stay in motels drink bourbon & cut your fingertips on

the zippers of your jeans / throw the oranges at the hero

ships on the walls forget her

her touch—nearly seven hundred days away / the desk littered with candles &

letters / last night folk music & a light bulb swinging humming

sink backed up & the water flooded the dirty blue tiles—you just ducked out

in another town you can imagine fresh basil in the kitchen window orange peels

ground down to dust bicycles farmland the peripheral at peace with

the eventual

you could show up at someone’s door unannounced by the wind

collect weeds as though they are scarce

sleep next to the man who takes care of the trees the edge is close

between two bodies smokestacks line the sky

troubled by your body, you’re trembling at the gas station

stay in a poorly insulated farmhouse north of the city

wake to a lack of rain, an unbroken sky

remember the moon from last night

that seemed to drift

if god were uneasy

you would not know

Source: As Burning Leaves (Red Hen Press, 2017)