Sometimes It’s Easy To Know What I Want

(Found here)

On a road that cuts through the richest, non-irrigated land

in the nation, according to some Lancaster, PA, natives,

a minivan slowed, and a woman with a good haircut yelled,

Do you want a ride, or are you walking because you want to?

I didn’t reply because my life felt so wrecked―

no matter the reason, either you get this or you don’t―

wrecked in the way that makes gestures of tenderness

devastating, like the time I showed up in Minnesota, brittle

with sorrow, and the professor sent to fetch me

asked if I wanted heat in the seat of his sports car

or the local apple he’d brought in case I arrived hungry.

I didn’t know people make seats to hold a body in radiance

like the merciful hand of God. The apple was crisp and cold

and sweet. Maybe I looked in his eyes and shook his hand

in both of mine when I left, I don’t remember. Months later,

he sent an empty seed packet, torn open, lithographed

with a fat, yellow annual no one grows any more, flamboyant

as Depression-era glassware. That was all, thank you.

Thank you, oh thanks so much, I finally told the woman

framed by a minivan window, but yes, I do want to walk.

~Julia Kasdorf