I am carving the summer between copies of Brokeback Mountain
bought for a quarter in a train car bookstore.
One in July.
The car is a detour from the farmers’ market
on railroad and brick past thrift store and
empty antique shop,
once full,
once held onto a Blackwater Falls postcard that kept me home away
from home, a letter beside my bed recycled from another warmth.
Pottery and painters:
people who watched me grow up,
whose eyes I never felt
with hometowns in my new one,
maps unknown, just a little further down the road.
One in August.
A high school English teacher serves coffee at the 4-H booth and
doesn’t know my voice.
Three creams, one sugar. I know hers with her back turned.
I wonder what happened to Jordan
the sweet boy from market who moved to a higher altitude and got
louder with the storm— something about a gun and a girl
or maybe just the thunder.
There is the train station and the smoke,
a playground beside fresh vegetables,
the homeschooled girl I always wanted to be is running her mother's
booth
and I am running my hands over a stone still damp in my pocket,
honey and moss and the downpour
at the stream outside the pavilion.
I haven’t seen the lightning yet.