Jan Wiezorek
Prairie Mode
Waiting for good is the moon at 3 A.M., thru
this window; a light to milk the magnolia,
w/ a circle inside me that wonders when light
will shape good in a shiver of razor-grasses,
righting my monster’s moon-spirit. Counters
still exist, where men drink coffee at 3 A.M.,
or sit at square tables, w/ pleather seats—
the commonplaces that heal us—& sometimes
not quite. I drive to the largest small town
tonight near Missouri bend for an all-night diner’s
meatloaf or potluck, & in ordering, a man,
hairy, bearded, insistent, centering his bull’s-eye,
stares me down w/ such inflection that I fall
in arrears, that I am not enough, the table is too
low, or my hips too high—& in finishing &
leaving, I see him in his 4×4, watching me,
as if I am threat & treat—minus words
or any motion in tallgrass to fill us
w/ satisfaction—making all the tire treads
in the lot shine in union w/ a moony, oily
halo, anointing bottomed-out land w/ risings
in my chest, stripping soul like a jack-up drill,
but I don’t know perfection in lack, or what
is permissible beyond a blue doormat
or a settler’s song, as unsettled & lost as we are
in prairie mode—& in the many ways we can say
this won’t play out between the weeds & coyotes.
Walking Home
Shapes diminish into the distance,
but they supersize our minds on dark
mornings, as we walk alone w/ ourselves
thru wide streets (as compared to the East),
broadening under foot, w/ land-stretching
frost from palm to nose, across index fingers,
& still busting dimensions, not to mention
what the promise of sky can do, opening
our vulnerabilities to no young son
of the plains, but a transplant from Chicago,
lost on a street, bike trail, way home
in this liminal town—so he walks
when not in training at Pizza Hut
(or McDonald’s), gone from Subway
& the bar, never chosen by the brewery,
never far from it, in his created food desert,
w/ no sugar to sweeten his story, washing
dishes but not himself—& I have failed him
on this cold morning—if we could only
reseed his purpose like restoring a prairie,
but his hello lines the telephone poles,
even shapes in the sky are his—clouds
of tiny-plastic booze bottles, power drinks,
& gas-station heroin drifting white into
blue like poverty walking him home.
Jan Wiezorek
Jan Wiezorek writes from Michigan. His work appears, or is forthcoming, in The London Magazine, The Westchester Review, Lucky Jefferson, Loch Raven Review, Minetta Review, Talon Review, Modern Poetry Review, The Passionfruit Review, Sparks of Calliope, The Wise Owl, Poetry Center San José, and The Orchards Poetry Journal, among other journals. He taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and wrote the e-book Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011). He posts at janwiezorek.substack.com.