Claudia Gary
Exurbia
It’s dark when I leave the railcar.
Commuters cross
where steel tracks merge with the pavement
in rows of grooves.
A car in an ill-lit corner
wakes to my key,
conducts me over an old bridge,
ascends the bank,
winds into a town, a driveway
with the same cracks
as when I pulled out this morning.
A filled mailbox.
Which end of the line is my life?
Feet on the ground,
I think of the day I moved here,
the reasons why.
In the backyard, tall willows
and maples cast
shadows on what I wanted:
houses for wrens,
bluebirds and purple martins;
a green foothold
away from the ruling business,
but not too far.