--- W E S   M U L L E N

She saw it loose out west of Erie, the
rough sod edge, the dotted line barely torn,
but still the gap.  A minute, maybe, a 

single grubbing fingernail through, then 
moisture and cold when she slipped 
Pennsylvania over her head.

She could see it all, and she
saw it like the underside of a dirty 
quilt or the sky over a refinery,

only heavier.  Then the feeling 
of space, her reflection in the tile
floor, the fat and creeping roots

of Ohio and the long-dry oil
pipes down Venango.  She thought 
of Dad, his homemade darkroom

and the Chevy, then her husband
who fell down New England like
it was a flight of stairs.  She could

see Venus through a manhole in
Oil City, far above the frozen river,
the fast ice like clouds on the Allegheny.