The Wake

Do Not Enter
Do Not Enter
Do Not Enter
interstates, rail lines and this
river of locks are containment
incarnate.
Do Not Enter! on your own volition.

Corpus:
Where exploring the interior of the battle scared tree
in the park near Franklin Avenue
injects life after the lightning strike.

Where highways do not
lead to my city’s heart.
They pump madness
molasses
leaving soupy trails
of purple and red through the drain pipes
and stick
with the road searing sunlight.

These river flats are not just scenery,
but a landscape where homes …

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Photo by Brian Aldrich

The fireworks crash, scattering between the city skyline and the river. It is the Fourth of July, 2007. There’s much excitement—the poetry spills in from the Mississippi river as it negotiates its way beyond the Army Corps of Engineers’ marvel of locks and cement waterfalls. This is the moment when Yes Press births …

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“It’s the cruelest trick to play,” reaching across the table to pour another glass of the room-temperature water, “swapping like that.”

“I know.”

“And you are fine with this?”

He looks around the room again, seeing the sun-stained portrait he found in a local market years ago. The edges frayed from years of misuse. It reminds him of sitting in the military doctors’ office back home when he was a child. When his mother used to take him …

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