Catherine Pierce
I Go Back to Ohi0for James Wright

At twilight, the fields
are dark, the sky muted

and broad as a snow bank,
and Ohio will stay forever
burrowed deep inside
the country. In Plain City,
which is only a street
with an Amish restaurant,

and a bar filled with broad
men, and a high school where

the Cougars rush and fall
to their fathers’ shouts—here,

I thought I saw you
beneath a smokestack, your head

large and heavy, your hands
empty. I wanted to give you

things I had collected
on my way: a grackle feather,

soil-black; an unbroken
bottle; the shell of a cicada

translucent as paper. But
I couldn’t call to you. The air

behind your body formed
a dark mouth, into which

you vanished like winter.