the poem that inspired it all

the state gem is a parking garage sign indicating vacancy

I remember Ann Arbor fondly as the place I go

to be in Ann Arbor. The dangly earrings that pull at your ear lobes

and jingle as you walk. I lived in Ann Arbor

for five hundred afternoons. The state bird

is a man dancing to Michael Jackson tunes

being played from the boom box near his feet. The state flower

is a graffitied alley which is as beautiful and bold as truth.

A liberal can use the word “beautiful,”

can boldly use the word “bold.”

In truth, Ann Arbor is not an arbor.

When I go back to Ann Arbor, I drive down hilly Ford Road,

around the curve on US-23, and past rows of old houses.

There is off of State street a theater, so life

goes parking garage, parking garage, parking garage, theater.

I wave at the neon lights that are drawing me in at the end

of this dull row of cars. Then Ann Arbor goes

parking garage, parking garage, parking garage, U of M.

You never forget how to be from Ann Arbor when you’re from Ann Arbor.

It’s like reading your favorite book while drinking expensive coffee from your favorite mug.

University Street is a spare city

in case Liberty Street shuts down. I live now

in Holland, which has no backup plan

but is named the same way as a country my grandma once visited.

I am reliving my grandma’s past for her, which is creepy

but so is what the skin on the back of my thighs is doing,

suddenly there are craters like on the moon.

The state joy is the University of Michigan.

“Hail to the Victors! Give us football and students with 4.0s!”

is how we might sound if you found us near the Big House,

just as summer is ending. Summer

never really even started here.

We are a people who wear shorts and skirts from March to November,

taking every chance we can get at

temperatures above freezing. “Fifty degrees is really warm!”

is the state motto. There’s a day in February

when the sun comes out and everyone trades in their snow boots for flats

and walks the streets with their eyes to the sky.

In this I have given you a primer.

Let us all be from somewhere.

Let us tell each other everything we can.