by Sarah Seybold
for Mamaw who worked at the Chesty Foods
potato chips plant in Terre Haute, Indiana
Conveyor belts roll by, and she remembers a road—
Indiana to California, 1938.
Her long, smooth legs and slender waist,
her wavy hair ungrayed. Far away
from that flat town,
her mother’s ghost, her father’s fist.
In her pocket, dreams of the West:
love and money, sunshine and glitz.
But once she made it to the Golden State,
she had to come back—
a baby coiled inside her.
Now she picks out flawed potato chips,
bruised green and purple, for a paycheck
that can’t keep up with the bills.
Hours to go. Miles of chips.
Sarah Seybold’s poetry has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, ZYZZYVA, The Dodge, Cold Mountain Review, Thimble Literary Magazine, The Indianapolis Review, and elsewhere. She grew up in Terre Haute, Indiana, and earned her BA in English and Gender Studies from Indiana University and her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Oregon. She lives with her husband and daughter in Columbus, Ohio.
January House Literary Journal 
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