Rebecca Temerario

From

All day we drove, in two

hours through Lorain, Huron, Sandusky.

We drove past towns I claimed to know

the way one owns everything at 18.

There were these houses,

fallen on each other and falling

down into Ohio- an abyss.

Some complete damn nothingness.

I raged right through my bones.

I ached so hard and so long through

the drive, wanting to litter out the window, wanting

to scream till the windshield shattered through.

I felt so much I felt nothing,

the way the state was filled with it-

cancellation of any beauty.

I hated it so hard it followed me

into the eve, into my twenties, my whole life

and body bent with it.

Then, I felt bad

with some empathy, wondering

how Pennsylvania claimed itself.

Is it so much better?

All the while, the world

knowing where it’s from.