Getting Here by Car — Poetry by Julia Shipley

 
We’re equidistant from the tallest freestanding filing cabinet—
          a narrow tower of thirty-eight drawers rusting up into the sky,
the only tribute to what never happened, instead of what did,
          and the Redstone ballistic missile (aka the space ship)
stationed one state over—world’s first obelisk with capacity
          to deliver nuclear warheads. Six hours north
of The Big Apple, you’ll spot our granite zipper, nod to our
          monument industry with its plenty ’o
tombstones, though you’ve still got another hour to go.
          Pass the parti-colored pyramid composed of 485 bowling balls
and whoops, you’ve gone too far. Come back nineteen silos,
          we’re on the right, beside two-dozen whirligigs
(aka wind turbines); if we’re not at home, look for us down by our pond,
          feeding the red herrings.
 
 
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Julia Shipley is the author of a full-length poetry collection, The Academy of Hay (2015), and several chapbooks including Herd (2010), Planet Junior (2012), First Do No Harm (2014), and One Ton Crumb (2015). Her poems have appeared in Barnstorm, Barrelhouse, Bloodroot, Cincinnati Review, Colorado Review, Green Mountains Review, Harvard Review online, North American Review, and Verse Daily. She is Vermont based freelance writer.