The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: Welcome to Midland by Logen Cure

This selection, chosen by managing editor Krista Cox, is from Welcome to Midland by Logen Cure (Deep Vellum 2021).

Welcome to Midland

This is a town where the roads end.
Over the wall at the end of my alley,
nothing but mesquite brush and horizon.

Dirt fills the sky, advances
a colossal wave, black blizzard,
tripping streetlights midafternoon.
Mother would stand arms akimbo
squinting out the back door,
Looks like Lubbock blowing in.

Folks would say we might just
dry up and blow away.
Bust followed that 80s boom:
half the Tall City’s downtown
vacant skyscrapers haunting
vast empty parking lots,
deserted mall storefronts,
endless musak drifting
the row of locked-down security doors.

It’ll turn around, they’d say. Always does.
Oil is king and football, crown prince.
Even when times are hard
those Robert E. Lee Rebels are champs.

Somebody’s always saying
it’s a great place to raise children.
People around here, they’ve got
character. They say
pledge allegiance under God
and mean it.

If you count yourself
a patriot, a good Christian, well,
don’t be afraid
to be neighborly.

Logen Cure is a queer poet and educator. She curates Inner Moonlight, the monthly reading series and podcast at The Wild Detectives in Dallas. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her debut full-length poetry collection, Welcome to Midland (Deep Vellum Publishing), was shortlisted for the Reading the West Book Awards. Learn more at www.logencure.com.

Krista Cox is the Managing Editor of Sundress Publications, The Wardrobe, and Doubleback Review. She’s a poet and editor and currently pursuing her master’s in clinical mental health counseling. Mostly, like everyone, she’s just trying to stay hydrated while she fights the system.