GREATPLAINS: A PRAIRIE LOVESONG by David Steingass

Guidebook 7: Bringing Back the Animals

Native Son poked through the junkyard below Lovers Lane

luminous clock faces & disembodied pool ball eyes
pancaked shoes & baseball mitts worn thin as chance
spangled loops tendrils spirals & whorls
snapped-o≠ ski bones sled runners & fishing poles
corkscrewed bicycle frames & rusty corn knife blades
transluscent flakes iridescent opaques & exotic glitters

Centipeeds sow bugs & mushrooms spronged out of squashed baking
powder cans
Pebbley-backed toads thunked through leaves and snakes unwound to fly
through grass heaven
He touched a smooth snake bed once astounded by its polished mosaic slate
patio
just as he began to feel the wind rattle across the prairie
and slam back empty-handed to whine around his flank and slip
through his fingers like the huge memory of buffalo

from GreatPlains: A Prairie Lovesong (2002, 79 pages)