The Tall Grass Futures

I am driving across

the comb-over

of the prairie

up to the north

where the stars 

are less pretentious

though on a still night

a mirror universe

will sometimes

burn its way across

the black skin

of the lakes.

At the truck stop

all the strangers 

are familiar.

The rain

the children

the diner,

all familiar.

Our drop ceilinged

fluorescent lit

discount America.

Back on the road

in the belly of the storm

halfway between 

here and there

I scan the radio

for the farm report.

Nothing but the occasional

sound of lightening

and the wiper’s rhythm

in the curtains of static.

Or is something else there?

Finally, from some 

distant planet,

a young woman

with the voice 

of tall grass

reads the futures

of the wet earth.

I’m driving to see my father

in his apartment

above the interstate

with an almost view

of the stone brown river.

He is alone 

for the first time

in eighty-seven years.

Eating frozen dinners.

(All my mother’s spices

gone.)

Attending Mass

as often as he can.

As gentle as

a step-wide stream

surrounded by a thousand

miles of prairie grass.

His prayers 

are the falling leaves

in the north.

They’re the cars

with exhausted

people inside.

They’re the water

that moves underneath

the fields.

His prayers

are our bodies

and the years

and the stars

still here

but fading

as they move

into the distance.

.