Walking
the Highway Back Into Town
by
James Owens
--Michigan City, Indiana.,
July, 2015
Insects
unstitch bodies in the weeds:
a
possum on its back, the pads of its feet
turned
up pink, an infant's supplicant palms;
a
fresher possum, draped with a fertile tangle
of
black and green flies; a raccoon simplified
by
heat and time to a tattered pelt and a snarl
twisted
to bite the tires that killed it.
Drivers
honk or yell, not to warn
but
telling the happy news that they are riding ---
traffic
from the casino that simmers with money
like
fortunate blood --- while others trudge in sweat
and
mosquitoes, among the slain, displaced
and
liable to damage. Then the poor streets.
Young
men glare, astonished by their own rage.
Sticky
children plague a sulking, blotch-faced
woman
who clouts one from a chipped porch.
The
white-haired, drunken man spilling helpless
as
ashes from his raveled suit wants to talk
about
storm clouds thickening over the lake.
And
one teen-aged, dark-skinned girl stands perfectly
untouched
on a high concrete wall, looking out
at
what is coming, not down at us, beautiful, alone.
Bio: James Owens's most recent
collection of poems is Mortalia, from FutureCycle Press. His poems, stories,
translations, and photographs have appeared in Valparaiso Poetry Review, Poetry
Ireland Review, Superstition Review, Kestrel, and The Stinging Fly, among
others. He lives in Wabash, Indiana.