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The "I'm-So-Hipster-That-I'm-Not-Hipster" Jacket

The Sorority Must-Have

The Avid Sportsman Windbreaker

The Mid

In the bright light of the Indiana plains

my sister said that it’s just as she imagined:

flat, with those tall, brown Indiana plants,

perpetually tall and brown in the dead of winter,

or mid-summer, or in an unseasonably warm March.

We flew across the flat highway, passing thousands

or millions of Indiana plants trapped

in their lonely, tall brownness along I-80.

I thought of you at the end of our journey,

waiting at the end of our straight and narrow path,

waiting in Chicago, where the Indiana plants

are replaced with industrial-looking things and

rich Midwesterners thinking they’re as chic

as the east coast or the west when in fact

they’re just caught in the middle of the long road;

pioneers who settled before they reached

the final destination.

And you- waiting for us in the middle,

where we’ve flown to and driven to from

our home on the east coast, you wait

for me with open arms and show me that

being in the  middle isn’t so very bad.