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

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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.

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