Raised on a farm,
he’s come east to sit
in a bar near the school
where he may or may not
be earning his MFA
and to talk to whoever
will listen, and right now
he’s explaining to you
that the people of the land
may seem bland but really
they’re all turbid turmoil,
rich earth turned over
too often by plows,
so many of them as needy
as milking machines,
many as full of themselves
as silos or just as
empty, many as lonely
as long-deserted churches
beside the backroads,
their rebuffs as pointed
as steeples, many as fond
of their hardworking spouses
as they are of the cabins
of their combines, nearly
everybody as defensive
as a shelterbelt. Yes,
all turbid turmoil,
as dependent on pills
as their land on fertilizers.
He shakes his head, claiming
he’s being just as sincere
as the Red River Valley
is flat. But then he admits,
winking as if you knew
all along, he’s just saying
what you want to hear
and he’d love another beer.
