Delaware

Delaware, I’m not going to lie: we have nothing

in common. I’m mountainous and you, you

barely keep your nose above water. Highest

point: 450 feet. That’s not even a baguette

in the road. But I like your name. “What did Della wear?”

Or, truthfully, the name of an English Baron,

De La Warr. You were the first: first to ratify

the Constitution. First to become a state,

December 7, 1787. But Delaware, we have never

intermingled. I thought I had driven through you,

but I was mistaken in that, as in so many things.

Delaware, let’s make a pact, to become better

acquaintanced. We both love potatoes.  I’m going

Right now to get some tangy Boardwalk fries.

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Wyoming (poem 23)

Wyoming, you are a cipher to me.

But you are so square, I want to

write you. You should not be so

mysterious;  my father lived in

Cheyenne. I remember the year

of the great flood, the mall

filled with mud. You contain

rodeos,  were the first territory

to grant women the right to

vote. Do you contradict your-

self? I have seen your statue

of Esther Hobart Morris.

Wyoming, I see your Tetons

And raise you long, windy miles.

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Idaho (poem 22)

Idaho Prose Poem

            From the State Sonnet Series

 

Idaho, Gem

State, though

what is meant by

“gem”? I always think

of Opals.  Are opals found in Idaho?

 Known for potatoes, I think of alfalfa,

  the scent of water laying all night in fertile,

green ditches. I think of all the golf courses covered

in grass, the silver heads of sprinklers turning in the

heavy humid dusk. Nights around the fire with dust

on our shoes. The way we lied while we smiled. My

Own Private Idaho. Washed away, the way mountains

and memories erode. Idaho, you taste of pepper-

mint schnapps and clove cigarettes. All sins.

 

 

 

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