I’m in my driving meditation, going
to prison to teach freshman composition
to men who understand life as most freshmen
cannot. In today’s class, we’ll be talking
about cause and effect in critical thinking.
With most classes, it takes hours for students
to understand what this lesson is about,
but this class always knows quickly what I mean.
Somewhere, I make a wrong turn on the country
road I’m taking, and I’m out in the woods.
I think about turning around, but decide
better of it. I have a compass. I’ll try
just heading north where I’ll find my road.
It’s quiet here. Soon enough, I’ll be inside.

/

John Brantingham is currently and always thinking about radical wonder. He is a New York State Council on the Arts Grant Recipient for 2024, and he was Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks’ first poet laureate. His work has been in hundreds of magazines and The Best Small Fictions 2016 and 2022. He has twenty-two books of poetry, nonfiction, and fiction.