The deer had been spotted miles away
bounding for the highway. Such strange
calculus that found us meeting.
In the motel, we brushed our teeth
simultaneous as flocking birds.
Iowa where the skies never blue
and the crops grow only telephone lines.
Christ in Iowa is bound to the cross
by stultification, reverence for the placid.
He may seek your eyes
but your eyes gaze elsewhere.
I saw a child pissing in the sink of a peoria
mcdonalds where all sides were blocked
by construction but there was a sculpture
made of old coffee tins rusted through
to conceal the names of extinct Indians.
Can we go back to being nothing once
we've become something?
Asked the deer who ran all the way around the world.
###
I worry about my kids.
The neighbor girl got hit by a minivan.
She was riding her bike on the sidewalk
and someone backed into her.
I stopped reading before I learned whether she
died. Now I worry about natural disasters. If the
dam flooded, what would I say to the
neighbors?
###
Eric Subpar is a poet from Washington whose work has appeared in Burial, X-RAY Lit, and Hobart. He is the author of Ghouls in Love(Pig Roast Publishing).