It always rained when we drove to Edmore,
Past fields of corn and potatoes
In the heart of the mitten of Michigan
With black dirt, flat fields, and Christians.

We passed a green sign every time that read,
Edmore 60 miles, and Dad always said,
If we have sixty miles to Edmore,
And we’re going sixty miles an hour,
How long will it take us to get there?

Edmore was nothing like our neighborhood
Of matching houses and manicured lawns.
It had a Main Street and one stoplight,
Where we joined in the parade for the Fourth.

We always returned at the end of summer
To visit our hillbilly grandparents
And join in the harvest of berries and beans,
But mostly the gleaning of potatoes.

We waited until the harvesters came through
When the fields were left black and loamy.
Then we went out on our annual quest,
To forage for potatoes left behind.

I was always astonished to find them
Just lying in the acres of dirt
And wondered in a precocious moment
At the inefficiencies of farming.

Then we piled into the bathtub like puppies
To scrub the dirt we could feel between our toes
With Gramma’s castile soap that smelled funny
Till the bathtub ring went all the way around.

We ate green beans and cornbread for dinner—
Not the sweet kind, like cake with honey,
But crunchy in a cast iron skillet
And string beans with a piece of salt pork.

Gramma gave us strawberries with sugar
In a stack of gold margarine tubs,
And when we got hungry in the evening,
She brought out a box mix for Jeno’s pizza.

Even though it was truly awful,
It always tasted so good,
And we would drive sixty miles again
To eat Gramma’s pizza in Edmore.