An Ordinary Crisis by Connie Wanek
An Ordinary Crisis
Connie WanekI don’t recall what final unfairness
made me pack to run away, whether it was
fall or spring. Either matched my haste.
Everything I needed fit into a pillowcase.I had read about hobos, stuffed bandanas
on a stick, jackets lined with grass for warmth.
I knew what I was doing. My cousin
had taught me how to whistle.I was crying, though; I remember that.
It’s so much harder to cry now
unless I see someone dear overwhelmed,
especially a man. I suffer a diminishedcapacity to drag a dirty pillowcase
through a ditch. At the border, staring toward
the railroad tracks, into the immensity,
my mother found me and ordered me backto the house. A little relieved, I obeyed.
I’ve always come home, or
wanted to. I’ve always been easy to convince,
given the least kindness.
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SHARED WITH GRATITUDE
This poem appeared in Rival Gardens by Connie Wanek, published by University of Nebraska Press, 2016. (Available direct from University of Nebraska Press • Also on: Amazon • Bookshop)
ABOUT CONNIE WANEK
Connie Wanek was born in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1952 and grew up outside Green Bay. Wanek is the author of Rival Gardens: New and Selected Poems (University of Nebraska Press, 2016), On Speaking Terms (Copper Canyon Press, 2010), Hartley Field (Holy Cow! Press, 2002), and Bonfire (New Rivers Press, 1997). In 2006, US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser named Wanek a Witter Bynner Fellow of the Library of Congress. She is also the author of a book of prose, Summer Cars (Will o’ the Wisp… (more)
Read more poems by Connie Wanek • Find books by this poet on Amazon • Bookshop • Website • Or view my library
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