At the Diebenkorn Show Without You
        #11 — oil on canvas

Is this California? It could be
anywhere, the way the overpass
straddles the street near its vanishing point.
That blur of green not so much grass
or trees, as words I rush through

to get to the heart of the story.
Where I grew up near the prairie, empty roads—
wind-flat, abandoned—
curved so far off, I'd tell myself:
Beyond that, that

I'm here now. The nascent red daub
in the distance still draws me. You'd say:
Look at the foreground,
how just a quick vertical
paints in the present.

Remember the cabin
we rented one summer, set back
at a turn in the road? I kept overshooting—
When you find yourself passing the pond, you'd say
you've gone too far.

Turn around. Come back.

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Copyright © 2017 Alison Jarvis All rights reserved
from Where is North
Silverfish Review Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission