East Saginaw Street and the Lansing that Shall be Yours
Night plays out through Kennedy,
Kush on the car radio, green aural
lighting puddles on empty sidewalks,
sparsely filled wide boulevards
passed at a steady forty-five miles
per hour. Side streets give birth
to long rows of tall trees, cars
parked in promise for the people
and homes you can’t see. For
the speed, for the depth of night,
for the wide dispersal of light
from scraggly utility poles, it plays
as if these moments are off-channel
late night on a discarded movie set,
left open for you to dream up
a Midwestern city you would want.
So it is, this night, in this city shall
become yours as you speed to its
outskirts for an all-night superstore
and little things, cellophane fruit,
Old Spice, and reduced bread loaves,
in the only places left for you to claim.
D. A. LOCKHART is the author of The Gravel Lot that was Montana (Mansfield Press 2018), This City at the Crossroads (Black Moss Press 2017), and Big Medicine Comes to Erie (Black Moss Press 2016). His work has been generously supported by the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. He is a citizen of the Moravian of the Thames First Nation, is a turtle clan of the Lunaapeew, and currently resides at Waawiiyaatanong.
Twyckenham Notes 