John Hennessy
Panic Through the Refineries
Jersey driving my sons Xmas-visit their mother
north up north up the Connecticut River
only me flashing in and out the white shock
the oil tanks and steel staircases enormously
circling vault and scaffolding another belch
of steam stack after stack a white cloud
I’m here not here I’m here the air
so frigid this New Year petrochemical steam
condenses vapor to fog white lights stud
my vision Turnpike ice the white sky draining
side of the road snow the train over flatland dark
creek buried tracks quiet curve click clack but I
drive this white car disappears even the slow
lane speeds I can see I can’t see I can see I’m
coming from my mother’s driving out of myself
my own childhood and back into it out of mine
and into theirs I’m here catalytic towers out
of mine and into theirs coker unit not here
they’re north up north tires whump the highway
seams in front and behind and on both sides
the lights and steam and snow the long bridges
John Hennessy is the author of two collections, Coney Island Pilgrims and Bridge and Tunnel, and his poems appear in The Believer, Best American Poetry, Harvard Review, The Huffington Post, Jacket, The New Republic, Poetry, Poetry Northwest, The Poetry Review (UK), Raedleaf (India), Poetry Ireland Review and The Yale Review. Hennessy is the poetry editor of The Common and teaches at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.