September 10, 2019

Nebraska corn

The first time, it’s a battalion, a rash of fresh recruits, a startle of verticality
against an edgeless, mushroom-hued sea. The second, it’s a record on repeat,
the scene from that movie when the main character fumbles into the same mishap
day after day, forgetting the lesson. The third time, your car nosing through back roads,
you find yourself stiffening against the visual cacophony, the rank and file of rows, 
the arch collars of husks, and that toughness follows you all the way up Route 91, 
then 70, then 14, then 20, old byways that still bear the echo of train whistles.
So it’s only on the final miles before the state line, the traffic swelling, your foot
cramped from all that pressure on the gas, that you notice, squinting at the fields,
how the stalks look as if they might be waving,