One maybe more maybe four on Indiana 44
you hunt for what rises -rusting in the fields
Mark the miles that way
to pass time
Headed east you slow behind a hog truck
then pass that shack at Flat Rock
his rebel flag makes you rattle like
quarry stone under the wheels
her blue garden globes scatter chickens
her daffodils waver in the breeze
Somewhere between Rays Crossing
Homer or Mauzy an old tower
waits for grain and catches
morning light in corrugated stripes
still useful despite its arresting
decrepitude
You nod admiration
you do not stop
Outside Rushville there’s an equine stockyard
sprouting weeds from horseghost remains
At the Connersville turn a sad baby doll
waves in a cracked turret window
sagging Victorian porches
still defy gravity over that way
The highway spits you out
through fallow fields, past more
granaries, green-stained concrete,
or those metal monsters
crisscrossed chutes and ladders
hunker through another season
silent against sky
cross the 12-mile line
At Liberty bear left
pass the concrete footprint of
Harve Bulla’s Corncrib
long-toppled but not forgotten
One room school wading pool
there’s the 9-mile road
you’re almost home
Early Morning Poems 