Poetry in America

Sometimes It’s Easy to Know What I Want

20 soMetiMes it’s easy to know what i want On a road that cuts through the richest, nonirrigated land in the nation, according to some Lancaster, PA, natives, a minivan slowed, and a woman with a good haircut yelled, Do you want a ride, or are you walking because you want to? I didn’t reply because my life felt so wrecked— no matter the reason, either you get this or you don’t— wrecked in the way that makes gestures of tenderness devastating, like the time I showed up in Minnesota, brittle with sorrow, and the professor sent to fetch me asked if I wanted heat in the seat of his sports car or the local apple he’d brought in case I arrived hungry. I didn’t know people make seats to hold a body in radiance like the merciful hand of God. The apple was crisp and cold and sweet. Maybe I looked in his eyes and shook his hand in both of mine when I left, I don’t remember. Months later, he sent an empty seed packet, torn open, lithographed with a fat, yellow annual no one grows anymore, flamboyant as Depression-era glassware. That was all, thank you. Thank you, oh thanks so much, I finally told the woman framed by a minivan window, but yes, I do want to walk. ...