To The Driver
From the muffler of a passing Porsche
Dragon smaug emerges in a puff of smoke
Spreading its wings over the highways of California
You seek your fortune
Roaming far from the reaches of cellular towers
Rolling over hills between vineyard and orchard
Shadows of the trees spread out over the road
Wrap the tires, the seat belts, the radio in darkness
Night turns to day turns to night again,
Your vessel still sailing interstates
Back aching tension burning
Along with the stereo
Singing steering wheel karaoke
Igniting the fuel to propel you
Through those landscapes you cannot see
This black space all around you
Ringing now with a golden tone
To carry you home
Poetry | Winter 2023
Three Poems
by Jade Oates
Report On The Cartographer’s Progress
This coast where we are now anchored is shrouded in mist
And the sailors are growing restless
While the cartographer collects yet another map in the port town
They whisper that his quarters are filled
with scrolls of these collected maps, and wallpapered in drafts of his own
“The way to El Dorado could not be more thoroughly plotted!”
Someone complained upon arrival at the last port town.
Our ship is sturdy, our canvases are eager to be spread wide
And your majesty’s cartographer is a dedicated man indeed
But the sailors mutter that his preoccupations now deter our mission.
They say, “the cartographer is not an explorer, not a man of action:
He believes El Dorado could not even exist without a map being made of it first.”
Last night he told me privately that the purpose of his mission
is not El Dorado at all–
I sense a mutiny brewing among our men.
So I am sending the cartographer on a new kind of hunt:
The men now bury his maps 20 miles into the jungle:
The cartographer’s passion will force him
into the jungle at last.
8th Street Laundry
Past the taco truck line weaving over asphalt,
Past the Little Caesars $7 pizza, past the liquor store & market,
Past the pit bull and his boy seated by the door
–With a pocket jingling full of treasure for my chore:
silver keys to unleash the flood upon my garments–
I haul my heavy basket.
Quarters jangle, machines beep, spin–wash cycle begins
And, behind a silver old grandmother, two little girls wander in,
Scrabble to the top of the tallest machine
Rising eminent in the corner
They find their way into the mural above
While Grandma folds a pair of gloves
The girls swim with dolphins, fish, and octopus,
Twin empresses, Daughters of Dahut,
They speak with merpeople blue and green.
Seated atop their silver throne (Speed Queen™)
They look down upon their Empire Underwater–
A civilization of swirling portholes
And I look into my own window–
Into my own world–
Where a white work shirt and blue silk slip form a capricorn
And the goat’s head whispers Pan’s wisdom,
Introducing me to my own reflection
Rippling in the glassdoor