I’ve grown to accept, maybe even embrace, the term Americana. The problem is that it seems so closely tied to 1950s small town nostalgia, but I think that will change as the generations shift.

Indianola and E. Arcadia

Leaves line the gutter on this corner
and if time eludes us and only serves
to separate moments in our mind then
the leaves are also blocking the road
from summer as a few families stand in
line at Dairy Queen and eat ice cream
on a picnic table bolted to the pavement
and cracked by the rain over the past
twenty years. One version of myself
is five and walks up the street to his
oldest friend’s house where ivy grows
up white lattice and they play on
the concrete floor with the alarm
clock that holds an electric shock.

It’ll be half that time before she emails
yet another me after a long absence
and it’s nearly time to go back to that
computer in the dining room and return
the favor. At least that’s what I’m
thinking as I turn down the street
and out from under the gray canopy
of late November, turning toward
the school and bookstore that I’m
still yet to enter. It looks inviting,
if something out of time or a movie,
with an antiqued sign over the side-
walk and windows that are slightly
stained by the owner’s tobacco.

Every time I walk past, the doors
are closed and the sign says that
they’re in the process of re-shelving.
Part of me thinks that it all would
have changed if my time was just
a bit better and I’d managed to make
it inside before it was closed, before
I wrote about rabbits that someone
else saw on the side of the road.
Not this one, but I’ve linked it back
to here enough that it stands out
in my mind when I reach inside
and pull each image past the event
horizon.

It’s later now and I head another way
through the intersection, on my way
to a gallery show and outdated movie.
I saw my first Star Trek film at that
theater back before the pay phones
were all uprooted but after the quarter
I carried on me made no more sense.
So far as I know the seats are still there
and nothing has closed down, but there’s
yet another me that knows that it’s
all been done away with. I wonder
which memory will last the longest.

Tags: 2007, Columbus, Friends, Grad School, Oxford, Poetry

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