Boom

By Heid E. Erdrich

Pale wool, blue horizon design, an itchy landscape.

We all wore the same bargain sweater,

in an airplane, in a dream. Boom. A fight erupts.

-

Take your seats please, and can we have peace?

No more argument from you, Mister

Mr. Not-Our-Same-Sweater-Wearer.

-

The radio wakes me with its cultured accent:

“The Labor Department today said…”

Push. Push. Push, my beloved urges

as he snaps it to snooze.

-

Snow and silence fill things

with nothing. But you all know that from Stevens.

-

Still, stillness.

-

Swirls of subconscious speak still,

so early my yearning bares itself:

prairie, butte, air so huge you gulp,

-

you might go down, drown from so much sky.

Such perfect absence. There’s nothing there but

birds whirling, snow geese as far as the eye sees.

-

North Dakota winds in grassland,

now that’s constancy. Buffalo grass glows,

frosted, flowing, speaking low, secretive.

-

Used to be there was nothing there.

Close it up, they used to say.

Return it to the Buffalo. Forget Indians.

-

Wind churns a million watts.

Gas burns ancient marshes off.

Coal pits deep and busy, like messy little cities.

-

Tell you what, drive out at night.

This is what an engineer in Fargo urges.

Flares for miles, he promises, as far as the eye…

-

Boom.

Reprinted by permission of Heidi Czerwiec, editor, North Dakota Is Everywhere: An Anthology of Contemporary North Dakota Poets (2015, ND Institute for Regional Studies Press, NDSU).