A KANSAS LULLABY
It’s the dust in your eyes
that lulls you away.
It’s the trucks passing through
that hum you to sleep.
It’s the fly on the screen
that gives you your dreams.
Fat bodies at the plates.
Food galore. Appetites unending.
Water, tea, and coffee no use.
The motel cracking and popping.
Soft pillows, hard sheets,
quilts made by arthritic fingers.
Bibles wilting
at their golden thumb-slots.
It’s delicious to fade away
into the windy night.
It’s filling
to end the heat,
And it’s nourishing
to give it up
Where the locals eat
with their hats on,
Your motel room is equipped
with a flyswatter
And the toothpicks
come secondhand.
—from Rattle #8, Winter 1997
__________
Dallas Wiebe: “A retired professor of English, I live in Cincinnati, Ohio, and devote my time to reading, writing, and promoting local poets. I am at work on three main projects: a collection of poems about Mozart, a rewrite of my collected stories, and a book of poems and short stories about how awful it is to get old.”
