Wander, Indiana

How did I come to be here? I suppose
I was like other girls at first, just shyer.
I used to stand outside the practice room
Listening to Chopin on the piano
With my eyes closed, imagining love,
I was a wise man in the Christmas play,
No lines to speak, but the whole stage to cross
Pretending to follow a light-bulb star.
I liked to spin the globe in my homeroom
After school, and stop it with my finger.
Then I grew up, got glasses, read thick books
I saw the sights that all explorers see
When I began to travel, yet somehow
The pictures in the books were always brighter-
"Smiling mermaids, combing their yellow hair"
The caption said, but when I reached that shore
And saw the mermaids sprawled upon their rocks,
I saw how thin they were, how they shivered,
And tried to dry their wet tails with their hair.

I heard the rumors about Shangri-la:
Yes, most of them are true, the palms sway
And gentle unicorns crop the green grass
Below the snow-capped, shadowy mountains,
But people stopped me on broad avenues
To ask me a question: Was I very happy
Down there where snow fell? If I said "yes,"
They turned from me in shock, almost angry,
Swept up their gauzy robes, and walked away.
That's when I crossed the Iceberg Sea to Limbo
And dimembarked in the ramshackle port.
It looked so ordinary, a town of bars
And rutted streets. Inside the "Rainy Daze"
I asked a sailor if he ever tried
To catch a glimpse of Heaven through the fog.
He shook his head, lifting his heavy stein.

But it was on my short voyage to Hell
That I first heard of Wander, Indiana.
I waited on the shore beside the Lethe
Among the mingling shades. I had no right
To passage on the ferry for the dead,
And the shades jostled me, mocking, annoyed.
I was loveless, hopeless, but I was alive,
Solid enough to weight the buoyant wood
Of the deck, remind them of their losses.
After the ferryman refused to take me
I pleaded with the dead. Where should I go?
Wander, Indiana some voices hissed
Above the groan of oars, the shrieks and moans.
And so I drove across the big prairie
Searching for the narrow road to Wander.

The sky was blue, the rustling corn uncut.
I passed the quarry and the water tower,
Drove into the country seat at twilight-
It looked real. I knew that strangers slept
Soundly at the Bide-a-Wee Motel,
Then drove away, never suspecting the trick:
The whole town, the whole enormous county,
Is made of drifting vapor, molecules
Combined-no one knows how-to resemble
Shapes of houses, hardware stores, and people.
None of us exist. We're clouds of matter
Driven by gusts of passion, lips dissolving
As we smile at you, and give you direction.

Wander, Indiana, by Maura Stanton