Midwest
by Stephen Dunn
After the paintings
of David Ahlsted
We have lived in this town,
have disappeared
on this prairie. The church
always was smaller
than the grain elevator,
though we pretended otherwise.
The houses were similar
because few of us wanted
to be different
or estranged. And the sky
would never forgive us,
no matter how many times
we guessed upwards
in the dark.
The sky was the prairie's
double, immense,
kaleidoscopic, cold.
The town was where
and how we huddled
against such forces,
and the old abandoned
pickup on the edge
of town was how we knew
we had gone too far,
or had returned.
People? Now we can see them,
invisible in their houses
or in their stores.
Except for one man
lounging on his porch,
they are part of the buildings,
they have determined
every stubborn shape, the size
of each room. The trailer home
with the broken window
is somebody's life.
One thing always is
more important than another,
this empty street, this vanishing
point. The good eye knows
no democracy. Shadows follow
sunlight as they should,
as none of us can prevent.
Everything is conspicuous
and is not.
"Midwest" by Stephen Dunn, from Landscape at the End of the Century. © W.W. Norton, 1991
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