In Oregon by Sam Lohmann

There was a jar I couldn’t place
between blond vinyl siding
and Doug firs bogged in English ivy.

There was a lot I couldn’t see
to park in, divided
between the tree trunks, house
parts, bumpy distance
to milkshake mountains, home stretches.

Straw slurp life. Etch-a-Sketch life.
Shake to erase. There was a place
I couldn’t jiggle loose of into
the same whole nother place, a slit grid
of garage doors, doors and windows
and large watercolors of windows
with the mullions painted in.

There was a slat loose. Some-
body’d get in maybe or
word get out. The garden sank
in summer, astitch with vetch, and I looked
through it, there there was
a clear jar that wouldn’t budge.
I took the blunt end of a
butter knife to it. Undissolved
precipitates hung in the air.