Meanwhile on the Outskirts of Toledo
- Meanwhile on the Outskirts of Toledo
A lighthouse lingers in a field. Eyes distant condos, crows. I drivetoward a coast a thousand miles south, think of every
misplaced Eiffel Tower, of plaster castles come to town like migratory birds.I’ve heard trees should uproot every morning, shuffle
four feet north to feel at home. This lighthouse I suppose is aheadof schedule, but me, I get worn down by the wheel of everything,
another town same show, always in the wake of some ambiguousprophecy. I’ve long lost the endemic, authentic, miss those ruins
in Delphi that stay themselves: home- bodies, smug, a pile of bones.There even the cypress trees gather to a point, everything
is the mountain or its inverse—you really see why it’s the center of the world.Why the oracle never quite proclaims stay or go. I’m a fool to believe
my options hinge open, that on the lack of a comma I might build. Do Ieven remind you of the sea? All my signals, lights, wasted on some hill
of stranded hulls. How far I am from knowing what my life will hold. Down souththe ships daylong arrive and salt air slips hot into my mouth as if to echo [End Page 76]
a body where none belongs. All the graphs suggest the worst, hope for the bestand none of it means nothing: I warn you, I warn you, turn around. [End Page 77]
Kip Miller is a writer and editor with a poetry MFA from the University of Michigan. She has been published in Indiana Review, West Branch, and others. She recently created a one-woman ecopuppetry show at St. Ann’s Warehouse. Originally from Ohio, she currently lives in Brooklyn.
