Indiana Problem

Maybe I need to literally be

in a boat to write this,

but there are internal waves,

right? I grew up landlocked

and firmly middle class

when middle class meant

grass but not too much,

a house that identically

matched five others on

the street, girl scouts,

Wigwam homes and their

paper symbols in windows,

escape routes from perverts

(there were indeed perverts

in suburbia according to the

guy in a gold sport coat and

aviator glasses who talked

to our third grade class after

smushing out his cigarette in

the lobby). There was this feeling

that there were answers in water,

especially floating in the city pool,

the shrieks and top 40 radio

muffled by the turquoise box

it made, and now all these years

later this water that hides things

rather than exposes, the claustrophobic

pool or reservoir, is easier to

listen to than the ocean as seen

from boats I will never board,

the small invisible hands of it rising

up to stop me if I get too close. When

I get close enough I start my walking

away, a latchkey kid looking for

any house that will take me.