Formica Road

I take Route 21

to Oshkosh all year through

quilt terrain, horse-

drawn Amish buggies

parked in the driveway

of the shop closed

on Sundays near

the spent stone farmhouse,

the girl who sold me

hickory nuts with her

St. Bernard, through

heaping winters, led

only by my love

for the moon. When

you died they put us

on a detour. Well.

When you were sick I tried

stitching you one square --

Tumbling Blocks in

velvet from sliced-up dresses

on sale, by hand each

dark diamond starred

clean, scar-sterile

gauze-filled pocket --

I didn't finish. Detour

ran through good sod

land, prime source

of baler twine. I watched

a girl waiting to cross

21, huge aluminum

mailbox and her hip

out, her elbow cocked;

she thought the boy, the

boy, might pass in his

Trans Am. Wave, girl.

All these passages back:

Tomah, Coloma, Wautoma,

the driveway I tried to reach

my star of wonder and got

a swaddling babe, gurneys,

IV lines, tiles and

skin, the smell of hot

Styrofoam at seven, eight

separate lines, Sweetie,

feeding your heart directly.

Nobody sings much now

when I cross Formica Road.

Could we have sewn in my own

heart? It might seem like

the middle of nowhere out here

but this way is a shortcut,

the truncated gravel just scars.

Betsy Brown, from Year of Morphines (LSU Press)

This poem first appeared in Black Warrior Review.

copyright 2014 Betsy Brown