Iowa

Once I was lost in aimless emotion,

Digging for meaning

In drifts of frozen vanity

Like I was searching the snow

On a rooftop for nuggets.

I remember that train ride with

You across Iowa prairies

Westbound from Osceola,

And someone down the coach

Was playing a Burlington Street song

As I looked out through the window

On oceans of grass, its leaves

Trembling with frost,

Reaching out for a hazy horizon

Weighed down by a lackluster sky.

Then sadness dropped her cloak

Over me, to soothe me with

Emptying silence, and I turned

A slave to the delicate hatred

Which brightened your eyes.