Jane Cassady – Dear Pennsylvania
Our Fresh Local Lit series serves up poems and prose by Philadelphians twice a week. In today’s edition we share Jane Cassady’s poem “Dear Pennsylvania” from APIARY’s Winter 2012 Online Edition. Stay tuned next week when we will roll out BRAND NEW content and FRESH NEW series!
Dear Pennsylvania,
You were the road I walked down
when I ran away from home,
the route renamed, untraceable,
but my mother’s lilacs,
still stronger than anything.
Pennsylvania,
my Rumspringa,
the choice made once, stay or go.
I moved to Philadelphia
so that I could say every day
Wissahickon.
Drive north
to my family’s arbitrary landmarks.
We count everything in rest stops.
We fondly remember the Electric City.
We shop carefully at Amish STUFF etc.
I have loved your neatly marked tunnels
through mountains
since I was born.
Hazardous materials,
please take alternate route.
Remove sunglasses.
Did you remember to turn
your headlights off?
We worry about your batteries.
JANE CASSADY writes pop-culture horoscopes for The Legendary, Sibling Rivalry Press, and Critical Mass. Her first full-length poetry collection, For the Comfort of Automated Phrases, will be released in 2012 by Sibling Rivalry Press. Her poem, In 1992, Almost Immediately, It Got Better can be heard onIndiefeed:Performance Poetry. She writes a blog about happiness, love and pop-culture called The Serotonin Factory. Her poems have appeared in decomP, The Ballard Street Poetry Journal, Lavender Review, and other journals. She’s performed at such venues as LouderArts in New York City, Valley Contemporary Poets in Los Angeles, and The Encyclopedia Show in Chicago.
Any poem that features the tunnels on the PA Turnpike makes me smile. Thanks.