The Oregon Trail decides
to make a movie
I hold the boom mic, hold it so high
I’ve mic’d the sky. The clouds are
talking about going on strike. The union
representative keeps saying words
like dust bowl and potato famine. If birds
were zombies the sky would sound
like hell. Everything would be backwards:
my wayward heart, your Sunday dress,
they’d be at the bottom of a well, not
in the back of the wagon. There your
smile is concrete, is cinnamon toothpaste,
is a little too strong to touch. I sit next
to it, tell it stories of oxen filled with
so much bile they’re green, blending
in with the grass, the bottoms of your
skirts. The first scene of the day involves
the wagon fording the Kansas River.
The river is deep, angry—understand
it’s really an ocean & doesn’t like to
be called a river. We will all drown
the actors whisper to the dust on their
boots. The Oregon Trail yells action.
The Kansas River that’s really an ocean
opens its mouth. These are the days
we forget to write about. We are quiet
under our clouds.