Why I Live West of the Rockies

When I said I didn’t want to live in
Pennsylvania, I meant it. The house out-
side Philadelphia rotting each limb
that’s lost its use, your mother’s soldered pout
as she hands over the china, wrinkled
hills of leafless trees spreading a browned gown,
the sparse lights of the Ivy Leagues sprinkled
on the horizon, academe gone down
like a fast ship on fire—You could never
understand why I won’t go back. Like all
shadows, our history’s carved by weather-
bent sun. Against us, all the seasons. Fall,
then winter shortening our lives with bone
dark snow, the home it will find over stone.

Keetje Kuipers