By Wendy S. Walters

Imagine you love sky enough to embrace
snow in right neighborhoods outside one
gray city. The tension between here and
there sets your expectation of distance.
This suburb wrangles a type. Maybe you
know them. Maybe you don’t care who you tell.
That is the hope and question. To start, take
a shortcut through the woods. Feel the desire
for safety as you unfold the map. You
are almost home but not allowed to care
where it is. Try to find the clearing.
Houses along turning roads, each a false
fortress, don’t fit together. Disquiet
serves as the provocation, the lesson.