On the Last Hill Before Oklahoma

 

 

“In a word, the boundaries of the Ozarks are vague to most people and subject to interpretation and disagreement by the experts.” Milton Rafferty, The Ozarks as a Region: A Geographer’s Description

 

At first

I felt the border like a paper cut

that nagged all the time for my attention

 

So I learned

a dozen places

I could drive to in minutes

to get to the border

see the border

invisible

itching

 

You ever hear a place call to you

the air or

the dirt

 

It was like that

 

 

Later I learned

the plains meet the hills

in paradox

intercut and interwoven

no books

no border

 

As much like hill country as it looks

I am living

on the plains

 

 

I took the house

on the last hill before Oklahoma

an echo made by the Boston Mountains

in their creation

Upland

in prairie grasses

same dirt

same air

 

Joey Brown’s poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in a number of literary journals including Rhino, The Mid-America Poetry Review, The Dos Passos Review, Compass Rose, Pinyon, Clare, The Chaffin Journal, Quiddity, Front Range Review, storySouth, Freshwater, and The Florida Review. Her work has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize three times. In 2010, Mongrel Empire press published a collection of her poems titled Oklahomaography.

Joey holds an MA in Creative Writing and a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of Oklahoma. She is a writing professor and teaches writing workshops.