New Harmony, Indiana
Living in a small Midwestern town,
the options for a summer afternoon
are few: a hike through cornfields or the glen;
drowsing at the library or pool.
Two restaurants. Not many boys to date
or marry, and a single ice cream stand.
There's less need for interior debate.
You sketch your life within the margins, and
a type of freedom blooms there in the shade
of lanes so still you hear the rustling leaves.
When choices dwindle, those remaining lead
you forward like a sonnet's stringencies.
The rhymes whose promises you must fulfill
relieve you of the burden of your will.
—April Lindner