You notice the hotdog hut has a drive-thru but
no bathroom. Any release at this point could
define our generations beyond X or Millennial.

Your four-year-old heard John Candy call franks
lips and ass holes. Honey, you said, I am afraid of
bears. Some confessions quicken what is to come.

Now, her boyfriend sits beside you as you eat,
your daughter and he holding their Long-Frank
wieners, weeks from graduating high school.

You are weak from becoming intrepid, from learning
what should move through, having come to,
fearing any orifice capable of speaking, of releasing.

You have spent a lot on this thing called language, and
you have finished loving it in ways that make sense.
You have begun to need a certain amount of nowhere.

Somehow, you keep trying to get through to everybody.
And if that ever happens, remember: none of us make
holy without lots of space, without plenty of letting go.

Your daughter and her boyfriend are eating their
Long-Frank wieners. Just like that sounds, much of it
hangs out. Lord, let it be so, for each, for all.

J. Lintu’s work has appeared in PROEM, Tipton Poetry Journal, Visio, West Wind Review, The Penwood Review, newversenews.com, , and forthcoming work in Aji magazine. An Associate Artist in Poetry under Joy Harjo at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, J. happily lives a few minutes away from Multnomah Falls.