I came back to Walla Walla
for the weekend.
The lilacs just beginning
to shoot buds. I came back
to where the sun rises over the Blues
and sets over Wallula Gap.
I thought about the smell of wheat
on hot summer nights

sweat running off my forehead.
It can be cold this time of year.
It was cold this weekend.
Wind and some hail and some rain.
I bundled deep into my sleeping bag
and listened to wheels
part water on Issacs Avenue.
The rain on the roof.

That night I dreamt about
the Air Stream trailer in Elk Lake, Oregon.
High desert, ponderosa pines,
driving with my dad to cinder cones,
hiking with my mom and sister
on Broken Top, then returning
the next day for my Swiss Army knife.
Once my sister and I had strep

and puked up our tuna fish sandwiches
in a crowded boat ride across Crater Lake.
I dreamt about the guy at the public access
who had caught the rainbow on Little Lava Lake.
I wanted to be like him, but all I could do
was threaten to catch minnows
and fry them for dinner. My dad said
it would take a lot of minnows to feed us.

When I woke up, I thought about
Battle Ground, a city
named after a battle that never happened.
Weeks of my life spent sorting baseball cards.
Where fog penetrates plaid shirts
and blackberry vines tear at shoes and ankles.
Vines thin as grass, thick as thumbs.
Gulls littering the fields in the winter drizzle.

Wanting out of high school
I sat at my desk listening to Neil Young:
everybody knows this is nowhere.
Or I sat alone against the wall
of the 300 building. Lunches I walked
to Safeway and ate jo jo potatoes
and chicken strips, or bought a loaf of bread.
But really, what I thought about

when I finally woke up, after rolling
over and staring at the ceiling,
was Victoria, British Columbia.
A city on the sound, the sound a sea,
the sea an ocean. If there was one moment
like the smell of summer wheat
and sweat dripping off my forehead
it was kissing my friend’s girlfriend

in Victoria, then two in the morning
standing on the end of a pier, indestructibly,
determinedly, taking a piss while singing
Canada’s national anthem.
Riding home the next day on the ferry
we sat next to each other. Staring at the ceiling
all I could think about was forgiveness.
Oh, Canada, that kiss made me
homeless.