Landlocked

I remember dry summer breeze through open bedroom windows. The wind yawning good morning to chattering birds, soundlessly waiting for the melancholic drawl of train horns after dark.

I think back to slapping the surface of the creek in rolled-up jeans with tiny pruned hands, catching crawdads and waterbugs, showing them like trophies. Letting them go when they wiggled.

I picture parking lots, Jenna in my shopping cart, the time she toppled over. Convenience stores closed at 8pm sharp, nothing left to do but drive. Joke how I still haven’t learned to. Highways and billboard signs, HELL IS REAL in big block letters. Been there so long we think God put it there himself.

I dream of the rickety click of rising roller coasters, the woosh and the glide, upside-down stomach. Sharing seconds with the sky.

I see the old man and the yippy dog, sidewalk cracks reaching the bottom of the cul-de-sac, white dandelion weeds. Blowing wishes with puffed-up cheeks, going 'til each seed’s gone.