Speedy Pete’s

By Jackson Mills-Smith / Issue 23

I’ve watched the same four farmers
drink the same pot of Folger’s
at the same table by the only window
my entire hoosier life.

They never age.

They are the paint on the bricks of this place.

Two are named Wilmer.

They ask if I’ve been train watching again
because of how each car
rallies cottonwoods in approach
and sends the fluff
to working about the blastpipe.

I say I have the well site
etched on my mind and can’t shake it.

I don’t ask questions.

They say they’re fond
of the way I open windows
with my looking, my eyes.

JACKSON MILLS SMITH is a second-year MFA Poetry candidate at the University of Montana. Born in Louisiana and raised in the bottoms of the White River in Southwestern Indiana, Smith is an author interested in the living histories and cultural folkways embedded in the landscapes that surround us. Now living in big-sky country, he maintains the same strong passion for hunting and angling instilled in him by his father and Cajun family friends. Recipient of the Greta Wrolstad Travel Award, and second runner-up of Midway Journal’s 1000 Below Contest, Smith’s work is featured in publications including Sunspot Literary Journal, Making Waves: A West Michigan Review, The Quarter(ly), Wild Roof Journal, Write Place, Another Earth’s What Makes a Lake?, and Third Room’s You are Here, Vol. 1: Labor.