In Iowa
Crossing over into Iowa on a whim,
That dim smell of tin and stagnant water,
The sense that somehow something
Of New Orleans has swum upriver
Like steelhead to lay its eggs here.
What else could account for this strangeness?
Sitting in the diner, odd images come unbidden,
Like in a dream deepened by valerian.
The waitress just put twelve scoops of dirt
In that coffee filter, one for each of the apostles.
Here where time is told in seventeen-year cycles
Marked by the rude alarm of the cicada brood,
And only the dead can slip their fingers through
The little loop the coffee handle makes.
The old farmers who turned around
When you walked in are turning the tiny dials
Of their hearing aids up the better to hear
The story one of them is telling again
About the time the grain silo broke
In the middle of the night and a million
Bushels of corn blew the house down,
Pausing for the sake of suspense before
Admitting regretfully that everyone survived,
Sliding down out of the bedroom windows,
A thrill for the children.
You have a feeling something like that
Is about to happen to you, that at any moment
You’ll be shaken awake by the force
Of corseted grain breaking free of its bindings,
Only it will happen inside you.