there is the world and there you are
in it. tired for years. you drive northeast
on a cloudy midmorning. the air hangs
heavy around the car. the car hangs
heavy in the air and clings to its static
frame. space sinks and stretches. once
you were a child, you imagined your adult
body. the space between your eyes and
dangling feet. the sweet smell of pine
rolled through the windows. consonant
s sound in whispered voices. eyelids
cracked. a soft electricity in nighttime
air. lights bled chalk yellow. heat smooths
and spreads on your forehead. you fall
into the end of feeling. a road drawn
in charcoal. the dew sinking into the fields.
growing pain in your limbs. breath of
your adult body. this is someone you want
to be. fixed in angles, constellated. who.
what. where. the car angles up. the highway
through hall windows. books full of animals.
four-legged giants stalk plateaus. they keep
to waterways that cut into the earth. hand-
painted, they laugh and curse us. scars under
bleached cotton. there you are carved
into the things you touch.

Ian Schoultz’s poems have appeared in Autofocus, New Note, FEED, DreamPop, and Landlocked among others. Originally from Ohio, he lives and teaches writing in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He holds an MFA in Poetry from Louisiana State University.