by Lucas Wetzel

From the viewing platform over the river
Two centuries after Clark and Lewis
I close my eyes and try to picture
That French-Kanzanian wilderness

—

The city is no longer the idyll
It is a flawed and living thing

Which you can see in fields
of motion, cars sailing
over the bridge, trains slowly
rounding the bend, small planes
landing at the municipal
airport

but seldom any ships

—

A bridge to what, exactly?

Lovers locks
in crowded clusters
padlocked to the fence

Combinations forgot
keys buried in silt
the metal a symbol
and nuisance

So what
commitments
have we kept?

—

Honey, I shrank the Ogallala
I didn’t mean to
Though in retrospect,
we were a bit reckless

Now the entire aquifer
fits in the cartridge
of my vape pen

—

Unmoored on the sidewalk,
people zip by on scooters,
head-canceling noise-phones
on their heads, wireless and free
Whither thou goest,
Pokemon goes

All these things I don’t really like
but wish would have been around
when I was a kid

Back then, the coolest thing we had downtown
was a five-story mural of a man
reverse-dunking a basketball

It was glorious
His hands were like the hands of God

Liberty Memorial,
his torch

All lit up like a beautiful
luminescent
bomb pop

—

We all have our claims to this place
My era will always be the most real to me
But so what?
Would I really wish it upon others?
Would I really want to leave,
come back, and see nothing
changed?

—

We’ve traded industry
for industry

The coffee plant is gone
but it still smells like coffee

On weekends people dress up
and form lines outside the food trucks

While I’m locked in the art gallery
typing like a ghost

—

The Missouri is a big river
that looks like it’s always on the verge
of vanishing or flooding

Muddy water eats
at the banks
tree roots raw
but not yet stripped
from the earth

In the distance,
machinery and campfires

Phil says there are entire societies out in the woods
and they want you to leave them alone

—

Before this apartment parking garage,
there was a billboard
that just said:
ART

Now we walk our dogs in circles
outside the fire escape, eye contact
out of the question

No one mentions the bodies
or headlines, and it might be
better this way

—

The road ends where it always does
on the green grass of the levee

a circle of white feathers
where a bird used to be

In the concrete foundation
of the old railway bridge,
a man and a woman embrace

Their body language is less amorous
than protective
though there is a romance
to the setting

The King and Queen of Pylon Palace
just above the waves

—

Everyone thinks they are the first
to discover this city
and none of them
are wrong

Just because I have stopped searching
don’t let that stop you

Keep making your path by
walking, riding, zoning, flying,
spinning deliberately
out of orbit

Keep gathering small twigs
and praying
for favorable
winds