Hudson Valley Corridor

This is a land of great riches:

even the baseball diamonds for tiny kids with ice cream placards leaned up against the fences

down by junkshacks and speedways are kept mowed all summer.

And our trees burst into white and lavender flame.

And we have so much pie, some with buttercrumb topping and some with latticework.

Pie.

Little red foxes hide in our grass.

Multitudes of baby strollers get purchased with bunting and rods of plastic beads.

Meteorologists know not a single thing

but pretend they do with big dry smiles.

(They are cannibals.)

Graffiti was invented here.

There are many regions of lakes and many small boats named “Lazy Susan” or

“Ship Shape II” and on these boats people eat potato chips out of shiny packages

and drink drinks with ice in tall tumblers.

What a place.

Ice in cubes, ice in bags, sold in a trunk in front of the gas station.

In some cities there are ice storms which slick the roads with instant threat

and in other cities people hang white dangles of lights on their front porches and pretend they have icicles.

This happens in the exact same country.

We say “wouldn’t you know it.” We say it a lot.