by Garin Cycholl

the fence is never simple;
it draws the land

“slow water in flat country,”
the Lake draws time

the Lake does not end at Gary
but seeps inland;

the prairie’s endless feign—
piling its waters against

the grasses’ sweet decay;
wind pressing current

the Calumet, Kankakee Sands,
slack water as substance

still “canoed theology & empire”
and apocryphal Americas;

indigenous American muck
below the toll road

contaminated mud, retaining
ponds & volatile liquids

the prairie respires history;
these false oats,

this immigrant savage with his
blood-curdling silence;

map’s slip into Michigan waters,
like the country has run out.

Garin Cycholl’s recent work includes Country Musics 20/20, a collection of shorter poems on Kafka’s “Great Wall” and the 2016 Inaugural Address (Locofo Press 2017), as well as the one-act play, Ms. Liberty and Her Chastity Belt.