EVAN THOMAS

River at Noon in Spring
 

Tell me you're not America.

Wild lilies
showing up after Bardo,

pulsing like heat waves off
Kansan backroads.

Cut of the jib’s a quarter a
million, & I keep catching

whiffs of the old me
in this shirt. Cowboys

will drink out of blues slides
here at nightfall, when the bees

thin out & quit agitating
their horses, long after their

ex-wives took the glassware,
preferring the company of dentists,

red wine, & slow dances to 78s
over that swill & song on the gee

tar. It's a Lookout Point like
any other, Sagittarius Auto Repair

just outside the gates in case
you get a flat trying to get up that hill.

There's still a Pibb vending machine
who is the source for over

25 years of anyone with that number
keyed in the plastic semisphere display

to have to change it, no matter
how much of a good time they give.

& of course,
no one picks up their trash.

The world moves on. The odor
is inconceivable. Unfortunately for us

no change in command occurs
on the ship's moonlight rides

to dance in our hearts
at the final campfire. A thousand

cherry blossoms fall, just for us,
the country listening back.

 

 

Winner of Prize Americana, the poetry collection Strangers, featuring "River at Noon in Spring," is COMING SOON from The Poetry Press of Press Americana.

 

 

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