The Heart of It All

What’s high in the middle and round on both sides?

Me on a motorcycle spinning through Ohio

thinking about how many have said they loved me

without knowing what that’s in spite of; 

for real though, this time, it’s like a bad joke,

this radio situation. What I need is distorted

heartland guitar rock to tell me how I feel, bluff 

wind at the crossroads of a town built around grain 

silos where I wait for it all to pass, this train

pulling car after car tatted up with bubbly hieroglyphs

each scrawled in rage or self-referential boredom

like me, each tanker, each boxcar telling me how,

each hopper tagged with I ♥ U, KC —my God, how

I hope love reaches KC wherever she’s hiding out

maybe at the next crossroads, and she never doubts 

that what can look battered can carry that load, 

love, a freight train like me, like me, like me 

laying down that heartland backbeat for anyone 

high enough, on a bluff like this, to receive.

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Cover Photo by: Bernadetta Watts