a delaware wind
blows you from graveyard
to second shift &
after your first night
herding five hundred soulless peacocks
minor hustlers
in the custody of the state of iowa
you drive to the waveland
where an ex opera singer
who studied at juilliard
tells you how she went from three hundred
to one eighty-six by
eating nothing but bay leaves and walnuts
anaconda
her arm swallows you deep center
out to her dodge shadow
where for the first time
at thirty-one years old
you find yourself
vacuuming white powder
off a sunburned dash
immediately
implicitly
succinctly
understanding the
twitching august knuckles
of every
stooped over
eighty year old woman
you've ever seen
standing in line
to buy
scratch tickets.
Justin Hyde lives in Iowa where he works with criminals. He has a web-page here: http://www.nyqpoets.net/poet/justinhyde.
