Iowa (a hawk returns)

The road to Iowa is paved with expectations,

two hundred miles long - among them littered

the adhesive strips of memories, along where

one slips the tongue upon the slit, fusing

bitter winter and paper-thin wafer without

a cut…

But the distance you give makes the villagers

double-take. They always thought you alive,

seated in the same spot, sputtering sage leaves

while you remained rooted in a computer, one

hard drive like a tombstone etching birth, death,

one more…

One more, the sages echo; one more sentence of

the man you once were. And now you are the

phantom, spinning on some hipster Coruscant,

assumed forgotten, now a spit-take on the floor

made flesh in the whip-flash, flaunting as you say,

“I’m here…!”

You’re here, and feeling not here, not there, not

a tree weathering anywhere, wint’ring in reverse,

to over-winded welcomes and melting into warm

minestrones of dreams, screaming into ice cream

bowls, wishing your return a sunshine, becoming of

a hawk…

But you caw away, guffaw in a lobby where you

once roosted, singing half-hymns of springtime,

proud of the townsfolk, stranger to yourself.

‘Til then, you nestle in a slowly dying hearth,

chirping one-days to stay forever-long, one-day…

one day.

#Iowa #UniversityofIowa #success #winter #ghosts #oneday #foreverlong #hawkeye #visitsnotvacations