The Middle Poem by Smoky Hoss

I was born out of a woman
other than my mother.
In the middle of Michigan.
In the middle of the 20th century.
In the middle of the cold-war.
When I was very young
every day seemed as a new poem to me,
extending outward from the center of the universe.
As I grew, I discovered
I was just an average guy
in an average place and time, as of course
we all are, great wars not was standing.
- Sometimes I wonder if I was the only poem
my biological mother ever wrote, or,
was I the only war she ever fought?
There could've been others.
How would I know, stuck here
in the middle as I am…
a poem, a war, found
in the middle of nowhere, longing, to return
to the center
of the universe.