Waiting for good is the moon at 3 A.M., thru
this window; a light to milk the magnolia,
w/ a circle inside me that wonders when light
will shape good in a shiver of razor-grasses,
righting my monster’s moon-spirit. Counters
still exist, where men drink coffee at 3 A.M.,
or sit at square tables, w/ pleather seats—
the commonplaces that heal us—& sometimes
not quite. I drive to the largest small town
tonight near Missouri bend for an all-night diner’s
meatloaf or potluck, & in ordering, a man,
hairy, bearded, insistent, centering his bull’s-eye,
stares me down w/ such inflection that I fall
in arrears, that I am not enough, the table is too
low, or my hips too high—& in finishing &
leaving, I see him in his 4×4, watching me,
as if I am threat & treat—minus words
or any motion in tallgrass to fill us
w/ satisfaction—making all the tire treads
in the lot shine in union w/ a moony, oily
halo, anointing bottomed-out land w/ risings
in my chest, stripping soul like a jack-up drill,
but I don’t know perfection in lack, or what
is permissible beyond a blue doormat
or a settler’s song, as unsettled & lost as we are
in prairie mode—& in the many ways we can say
this won’t play out between the weeds & coyotes.
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Fiction - ISSUE #28