Elkhart

ELKHART

Elkhart.  Planed (horizontal)

onto flat plate of the fields.

Winnebago windshields

flock to leeward (behind motel).

I mosey through October park.

Light amid oaks, the old

Masonic bandstand.  Lake-bound

rivers intermingle through dark

Indiana valves.  Small-town museum

could be Russian (one

spare Burchfield windblown

farm, out of Depression).  Hum

the highways, south of the lake (U.S.

80).  Truck route, grain-

belt shuttle.  Hymnal (plain-

song).  Bible radio.  Esso, S.O.S....

Black Elk might have passed through here

(on the train).  The Buick

shuttles east-west, slick

with amaranth, milkweed... sheer

sunset loom-dust (grain elevators).

My father in rehab,

voice faint (grabs

phone with one good hand’s

bone grip) at the end of the line.

The left-side vision’s

gone.  Yet mind’s precision

lifts hoarse laughter (like a highway sign).

11.20.14