LatinosUSA

1.

An exodus splits the ocean of corn,
ninety minutes from Kirksville,
country miles rolling under the wheels.

Each turn of locomotion cuts  
thick summer air, twilight 
putting to rest lazy daydreams

Imagination, the cheapest 
way to travel, pulls fuel
from wells of dinosaurs.

Bring the mind
unearth the body.

2. 

Recent news of Baxter
falling to his death 
while climbing cliffs
at Yosemite grips me. 

My foothold
slips on the pedal.
I stop to reminisce
about days of flight

in back rooms 
of Taylor East,
climbing to altitudes, 
stoned and stupefied.

3.

I’ve made a plunge 
in these plains, curating
expired dreams.

Landlocked, save for a few
majestic rivers, my return
to the sea seems remote
a thousand miles upstream.

Copyright © 2024 Zak Wardell 
All Rights Reserved

Zak Wardell’s science education landed him a career as a physics instructor teaching non-science majors. He majored in physics and earned a minor in creative writing at UMBC, left Baltimore in 1995 to attend graduate school at the University of Missouri in Columbia, and received a Ph.D. in physics in 2003. His poetry has been published in six volumes of Interpretations, a project of the Columbia Art League, and in The Loch Raven Review, Lothlorien, and Last Stanza.