RED LETTER U-HAUL DAY

I drove west through Michigan on I-94
past dilapidated hunter’s shacks, backyards
like scrap yards, & one-stoplight towns,
and wondered if I was ruining my life.

I wondered about the tv, swaddled
in a pink blanket the dog and I
shared in another history. I wondered
about the heft of my books, glassware I hate,
bedding from a monopolistic mega-corporation, white
Corelle bowls, the inadequacies of bubble wrap.

The train is better, how it winds through
backyards and country road crosses
where a lone pick-up has stopped
all accusing impatient headlight-eyes.

The highway is a pool for matches and I lap, I lap,
I lap, I lap, I lap.

Kelsey Zimmerman is a writer from Michigan currently living in Iowa, where she's a first-year graduate student in Iowa State's MFA program in Creative Writing & Environment.