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Dear Dad,
Picked up from Montana the other night, for Oregon.
Expected the road to be like that from Virginia—
familiar constellations. And here as behind me I expected
mountains. But coming down off the glaciers, everything
widened. I tried to accommodate this in the morning,
through the dust columns—watching one on the unfurling
land, almost in reach, lost in its own wind, inches away,
spindly like a nun and flung into horned shadows.
Many others woke to dance past the machine plantings :
bent and praying beyond cold alfalfa, the dust wanders
as the fraying sky drops—a steel raptor. On a rural road
nearby a Thunderbird revved. Tilling gears, a young man,
a mule perhaps, maybe trucking methamphetamine
this flat Tuesday, kicking dust across the road’s gray face.
Another brown dust column wandered into his wake.
I’ve meant to ask—
What’s to all this moving about if there are no trees,
when the only birds are killers, only fitfully landing with
a screech—down onto something, its eyes pried-open?
You think a woman rests her head on that driver’s lap?
Bet that girl sucks her gums. Bet he rattles the gear shift
too close to her face down low, lies to himself about
a safe place, a porch out there somewhere on this plain
spread open. There were other places : the sun unbraided
into various times, in satellite dishes. A thing insisting
within the patchwork faces : glints off women nailed
to mud flaps. In this front seat someone’s head spills
towards the driver’s lap while woodsmoke skirts the
horizon. Something tilts and rolls the farmers to bed,
drags bald-tire fumes from chimneys. Here, weather
and the mountains meet. Another burnt column’s
brown arms extend, gathering up inevitable prairie.
Expected the road to be like that from Virginia—
familiar constellations. And here as behind me I expected
mountains. But coming down off the glaciers, everything
widened. I tried to accommodate this in the morning,
through the dust columns—watching one on the unfurling
land, almost in reach, lost in its own wind, inches away,
spindly like a nun and flung into horned shadows.
Many others woke to dance past the machine plantings :
bent and praying beyond cold alfalfa, the dust wanders
as the fraying sky drops—a steel raptor. On a rural road
nearby a Thunderbird revved. Tilling gears, a young man,
a mule perhaps, maybe trucking methamphetamine
this flat Tuesday, kicking dust across the road’s gray face.
Another brown dust column wandered into his wake.
I’ve meant to ask—
What’s to all this moving about if there are no trees,
when the only birds are killers, only fitfully landing with
a screech—down onto something, its eyes pried-open?
You think a woman rests her head on that driver’s lap?
Bet that girl sucks her gums. Bet he rattles the gear shift
too close to her face down low, lies to himself about
a safe place, a porch out there somewhere on this plain
spread open. There were other places : the sun unbraided
into various times, in satellite dishes. A thing insisting
within the patchwork faces : glints off women nailed
to mud flaps. In this front seat someone’s head spills
towards the driver’s lap while woodsmoke skirts the
horizon. Something tilts and rolls the farmers to bed,
drags bald-tire fumes from chimneys. Here, weather
and the mountains meet. Another burnt column’s
brown arms extend, gathering up inevitable prairie.
Posted 12/11/09
Comments (1)
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Forgot to add: originally in Columbia Poetry Review.
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04/25/11 1:20am
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