Nothing to Do with Us, or Poem against the Crumbling of the Republic
Old friend, are we there yet? You sat with me once, outside a dirty burger joint, a hard light at the windows. It was just about the ass crack of the afternoon, mountains in the distance, & I’d played a trick on you, or you’d played a trick on me, & the highway was a home to comings & goings, nothing to do with us. We had hours yet to drive. Old friend, how long should we sit here, breathing dust & gasoline, watching clouds gut themselves on the pines?
Credit
Copyright © 2018 Joe Wilkins. Used with permission of the author. This poem originally appeared in The Southern Review, Summer 2018.
Author
Joe Wilkins
Joe Wilkins received his MFA in creative writing from the University of Idaho. He is the author of the poetry collections When We Were Birds (University of Arkansas Press, 2016), Notes from the Journey Westward (White Pine Press, 2012), and Killing the Murnion Dogs (Black Lawrence Press, 2011). He is the director of creative writing at Linfield College and lives in Oregon.
Date Published
08/28/2018