I’m very pleased to have my poem, Looking for America,” in the 2023 print issue of the Clackamas Literary Review. Here is the poem:

Looking for America

Let us be
best friends
one last time—

roll out the old
Ford
and take

that trip
we so often
dreamed of

when young.
Head to
the west coast

on those two lane
roads that once
were America.

Remember
when we were
America too?

Fill that old
Ford with
chips and beer—

the radio set
to the “Nothing
but Oldies” Station,

loud enough
to remind us
we are still alive.

Swap lies
with the locals
in pubs on Main Street

and sample
the biscuits and bacon
in dozens of mom

and pop diners
in what was once
the heartland—

a thousand dots
on a tattered
gas station map

long ago
bypassed
and nearly forgotten.

And when
the Ford
throws a rod

in Kansas
or Colorado,
as of course

it must,
we can unfold
the aluminum

lawn chairs
and sit on the berm
to wait for the sunset.