An original poem for you all. I’ve been writing very short poems recently; this was my attempt at a longer one.

Notarized

Yesterday I processed paperwork for a dead woman.
She’d lived in Wyoming all her 67 years
according to the affidavit of domicile.
67 years all in one place – in Wyoming, no less –
which, though beautiful, doesn’t vary much
between its snowy granite peaks and limestone canyons
and plains empty but for sagebrush and sky,
from corner bars with canned beers in a fridge out back
to cargo warehouses with dusty parking lots,
all devoid of people who aren’t white and straight.

Spending your whole life in one place
is an experience I’ll never have. I want to be in all places –
I have five tabs open in Google Chrome for a hopeful vacation
to Costa Rica: flights, guided rafting trip, a treehouse
built on a mango tree in Cahuita out past the sloth sanctuary.
Reviewers say you can hear the ocean through open windows.
This Wyoming woman, her life spelled out
in front of me, notarized, never heard waves.