WE EXPLORERS, WE. I ADVENTURER, I.

LEWIS AND CLARK ABANDON THE MISSISSIPPI FOR SALT CREEK, COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS
A creek runs through town.
Through the back alleys and yards,
past factories and nestled between
a line of trees on either bank.
The rickety chain-link fences have gaps
throughout and the water is not hard to reach.
Laces are untied and shoes kicked aside
as trousers are rolled and the water trickles between toes
We looked into murky water searching for fish or turtles
and found typewriters and shopping carts.
To us, the river went on for miles and miles,
southward toward the Gulf where there was a sea waiting for us.
We would brave it one day, we said.
When the rain came drowning out our parents' screams
and the waters rose enough to keep the bottom of even
the most ramshackle boat from scraping against the
muddy basin we felt sure would soon be sand.
We never left, though.
The water would sink back down to its familiar shallows
and our parents' voices would return to whispers.
But we knew it was there and it comforted us.
There was always time.

ODE TO MY FEET
My feet are an earthy tan that the rest of my legs will never know. Hints of pale where straps and shoes and cuts once were mottle the color. There is a fading scar on the top of my left foot where a well intentioned suitcase scraped across it as I ran for the will-be-departing-any-second train I needed to catch. The scar is coupled with broken nails, bumps, and bruises. The pads on both feet are calloused and the skin struggles to adjust to its newly acquired toughness.

The shoes I'd meant for walking begin to show signs of life as the first cracks in the rubber appear.
Holes are worn in the soles and the tread has long since vanished.

These feet have earned their markings. They move forward, always forward, through labyrinthine cobblestone corridors and up the now familiar gothic spiral. They walk until they are raw and blistered. They walk until they bleed. They bled and their skin cracked and yet they carried me all the while so that I might know what the earth was made of or perhaps what I was made of. Sacrificed in some degree and now memorialized for they are here for me as living proof. Proof that whispers to me: You have made the most of this.