Chester, Illinois

Cloud piles on cloud; keel scrapes sand.
Coal dust drifts from a rusty barge,
the river full of silt, field soldered to field,
even the light heavy. Far from the sea
Popeye reels along a gravel road
with an oar against his shoulder.
On Swanwick Street, the rare tourist
en route to somewhere else
ruminates on myths displaced.
Rough House cooks an omelet
as patrons trade in cattle futures.
The first stirrings before a storm
stroke the wings of the Whiffle Hen
drooping in sleep on a porch rail
as scrapings of “Harvest Home” drift down
from windows of the opera house
in flurries of rosin. Far from the sea,
far from its whip and precipitous glare,
a floodplain streaked with rills
condenses the leaden light.
Travelers from vast spaces
or truckers in a turnout
check their instruments
and test infinitives
against each hole and hollow:
to spend the day in a rain barrel,
to scour the kitchen clean,
to curl beneath an olive quilt,
an ember under ash.