Google Street View in a rural, mountain town
What bothers me the most is when I turn the corner to highway 34, the winter is missing
where my father would be hit by a truck and killed driving the two-door hatchback he bought
from me. Google Street View jumps from cloudy July, 2008 to the cinder “chipped” roads of the
neighborhood March, 2009 to dry, September, '09. Turning corners means change, means
slowing down, means looking both ways, means the end of grief, means clicking between X's to
escape to March 2009 where I spent most mornings 60 miles away, staring into a slow
calcification of my one-bedroom apartment. Each night, I held myself up with the metal bars in
my handicap-ready bathroom, the kitchen floor sloped inadvertently and every hour the
refrigerator skidded to life the rent was low, and I washed dishes at a cafe.
In drive-by photos I hopscotch in clicks with my mouse from subdivision to highway, and the
virtual corner passes away from life to my father's death in a matter of months, and clearly,
highways are more important, updated, and snow plowed and missing seatbelts were just
becoming illegal in Idaho, and I was in college and if only IRL time had skipped over his
February death like it skips over so many things, once you finally jump out of your
neighborhood. Google Street View is not a time machine: it’s not a window: it’s not a vehicle
for grief: it’s not even stuck in time. It is a virtual car too visible to hit, moving too slow to crash.
Twin Falls, December 2015
Already dead, I owe you
these belongings
because you pulled me from the street
the way a deer owes the driver
who flashes their brights
at the passing cars
to wake them;
two bean and cheese burritos from El Herradero,
a Killer Instinct Super NES cartridge,
your red stocking cap I puked in,
a Christmas you wrecked with your suicide
since you failed the first time.
But still want to die and told me you
quit smoking
and you don’t want to live,
(You owe me your own mess to clean up: a hospital to visit,
a family to tell what you’ve really been
up to), the written conversations, I get that you are dying.
I owe you a way out. There are cliffs
there are guns there are waterfalls. The Snake River Canyon.
There are no words of how, just a Facebook goodbye.
I am still smoke free[sic], and it confuses me.
I owe you discretion; I owe you the lack of interest
in the how or the pill
or gun or height of the fall
or why
you mentioned multiple times in your letter
your car was repossessed.
And all I can think of is gas, gas, gas.
The subdivision
It is still July 2008 in google street view
hiding in the trailer court is a methlab
is an alcoholic
is a guitar guru
is each waxing memory of your father
and mother together
hiding in the neighborhood is a buried chest of Playboys
is a sandhill crane re-etched by a home taxidermy book
is your mom shoveling the macaroni and cheese
with hotdogs off of the carpet as you puked the rest
in the bathtub
what is left of the neighbors is their sewer hookups
you can’t decide why one family stays and one family goes
why you chose to show your mom 1-800-HOT-LIPS
or what lies beyond
the recorded message
the pay-per-minute or
why phonebooths are unplugged
you know hiding in the trailer meant
not a house not your home but
the trailer that took your father
and his stuff away
the porch where he smoked cigarettes
ashing on the astroturf or he just sat with patches
of nicotine on both shoulders, shirt off with an acid burn
from the phosphate plant. It is still summer.
Turning the corner, I see a white dog trotting behind someone
leash off and dreaming
Jeff Pearson is a graduate of the University of Idaho’s MFA Program and has been published by Noble / Gas Quarterly, Otis Nebula, a capella zoo, Heavy Feather Review, Shampoo, Salt Front, Axolotl, Monkeybicycle, Moon City Review, and most recently, The Mackinac and HOUND. His chapbook, Sick Bed, was published by Small Text Dreams Press. In 2015, he was a finalist for University of Arizona Poetry Center’s Summer Residency Program judged by Eduardo Corral. He is an instructor at Washington State University.