By Lindsay Wells

Sometimes you sit on a patch
of deadening grass
overlooking the river
and wonder
what it would feel like
to ride the current
until it spit you
out into ocean.
Or to hop on
the back of a freight
train rumbling through
downtown just to see
where it took you.
You wonder
what it would feel like
to let go, to not have
a destination.
You want to drain
all of your genes
out of your body,
but you know
that is impossible.

So you wait
until your thirtieth birthday,
when you can finally
be sure you’ve avoided
the summer you found your mother
screaming naked in the Dunkin Donuts
parking lot at Hoxsie Four Corners,
waving her Lithium arms
toward you,
though she did not know
who you were.

Copyright Wells 2013