Kid, this is October, and: Kid, this is Iowa, and: Kid, this is the first rain, and: Kid, these are train tracks, and: Kid, I remember 1968
Rent from DeepDyve- Kid, this is October, and: Kid, this is Iowa, and: Kid, this is the first rain, and: Kid, these are train tracks, and: Kid, I remember 1968
- Kid, this is October
you can make the maples blazejust by stopping to look,you can set your clock to the barksof geese. Somewhere the grandfatherswho own this town lean down to ironcrisp blue shirts, their faces bathingin steam, and blackbirdsclamor in packs,make plans behind corn.You know this,you were born whistlingat crackling stars, you snapyour fingers and big turtlesslide out of rivers to answer.You can swim one more timein the puddle of sunin your water glass, taste iciclesalready in the white crunchof your lunch apple. Goto sleep. I’ll put on my silver suitand chase the sky into the moon. [End Page 111]
- Kid, this is Iowa
everything we are is here—my dead grandmother as a girlhunting fireflies in tiger lilies,me throwing walnuts at gas cansby the barn, stomping mud puddles,my sticky hands lifting an appleto my mouth. Here are dogwoodsand hills of corn that lead to more hillsof corn and more corn until the mooncomes up hot and my fatherrattles the ice in his gin and tonic,polishes his guitar. The horsesthat dragged the lumber to buildmy grandparents’ house still stompin the back pasture, swirl their tailsat fat, biting flies, and the sizzle of baconkeeps waking me from my childhooddreams: cattails snappingtheir fingers, a badger’s green starecaught in headlights, my grandfather’sriding mower humming on the lawn,confetti of clipped grass stuckto his neck. The clouds here are so longthey stretch from the hidden parts of your bloodacross the Atlantic to some lost place whereevery ocean is healthy again, plump with whales,and your forebears stand on cobblestonesaround a barrel fire, lickingsalted whitefish off their thumbs.And here you are this morning, climbingthe wood fence I will always carry splinters from,lifting your body into the smoke ofour leaf fire, great plumes of it reminding uswe were born to keep moving here, keepleaving here, keep killing these fields and hills,twisting them into smoke, then bringing them back. [End Page 112]
- Kid, this is the first rain
of November. It strips off the restof the leaves, reminds treeshow to shiver. I think to Earthit looks like the first first rain, the waterof the beginning, swirling down hotinto gassy soup. The bubbling stuffthat imagined trees to begin with, and alsomountains, kangaroos, dolphin cartilage,stoplights. And you, tearing downhills on Arnold Street, a blurof training wheels and streamers. And mein the ’80s, crunching Life cereal on the couchbeside my night-owl mother, blue in the lightof David Letterman’s grin.
Try to remember, everything that is solidis not solid. But slowly, always melting. The roadcracks, wrinkles like a folded map. Huge treeslie down, throb into pulp inside termites.And the ground drinks you,though you grow, a tall drink of water,going down easy. It swallows me fasterand faster. But don’t worry. Look atour neighbor’s roof—those fake gray shinglesare crumbling, growing a thick peltof moss. Eventuallywe all wake up as forest. [End Page 113]
- Kid, these are train tracks
the train never comes.
You smell it anyway, its blue-coalbody. In August, the fringe sticky
with Queen Anne’s lace, you mightwalk these tracks inside
gigantic noons. I walked them.You might smash bottles,
start fires, watch clouds fromyour back, breathe clouds through
the red sparks of cigarettes.Take your first sips of bad
sweet wine, cry in a graveyard at nightwith your best friend, a half moon
and grave dirt in your hair.Have your first bad...
