It’s true. Some nights I leave
the disarray of donations, frost-lipped boxes spilling
uselessly into the dark; the woodstove, always begging us
to chap our hands on the hatchet
in the wind-raw night and—
I drive and drive
to the fluorescence of Prairie Knights, promised land
of internet and limp quesadillas. Here, camp blossoms
into the buffet line and business center; our phones find every
outlet and our hat-smashed hair oils
the vinyl chairs beneath the bustle
display and in the pool’s chlorinated hall. Everybody shares
the latest gossip: who’s running the cookshack,
the oncoming snow, the day’s arrests.
But I find myself hiding in the windowless orange light
of the Schwan’s machine room; alone
to lean the spasms in my back against the glow
of the beef stroganoff button. For the first time in a week, I take off
my coat. I’ve come with notebooks to grade, funds to raise for bales to keep us from the cold; but instead I scroll and I scroll: stare at blooms
of lavender lattes, friends on hikes, at bars, cooking dinner, arms
posed around their husbands and I never
say anything to them.
Maybe I’ll cocoon in the casino forever, dragging soggy fries through an eternal
river of ketchup or I’ll drive the fourteen hours to a city where I own
a bed. But even as the empty vein
of the pipeline pushes further and further, as storm-bent
tents sing the songs of hollow shells, and my spine
forgets how to hold me: I’ll drive north
past the pastured horses, ice glittering on their eyelashes, the cars
blizzarded into the ditch. Head north toward the gate
where someone will shine a beam in my car, say go on in, welcome home.
These leavings a privilege I want and don’t want. The night a salt shaker of stars.
Copyright © 2025 Teresa Dzieglewicz. From Something Small of How to See a River (Tupelo Press, 2025). Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Tupelo Press.