Weber—The Contemporary West | Fall 2020

Page 54

P O E T R Y

Todd Robinson

Nebraska City Psalter

Ammodramus

Last night, sleepless and sore, I took my body out into the dark with a belly drunk with sobriety and walked. Birds ruled the branches of a tired river town, haze of August heat muddying the starlight, chlorine glow of street lamps and the jolt of coal trains through the gut of steaming America. Down to the river I rambled, bars quiet as the houses of the dead, trees shivering with secrets, bugs bouncing off my forehead. The place seemed ready to tip and tumble into dirty water— nostalgic ghosts keening in cabins, calico dresses and work-shirts quivering on the clotheslines of the past. Westward, I turned


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