McCook, Nebraska

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“God Bless America banner is $8.99.”
“Bronze eagle to be raffled by art guild.”
“BBQ tastes best with family.”
“Free haircuts for a year!!! Enter to win.”

Nourished, fortified and encouraged by
Copious cowpies, corpulent flies blunder,
Dart then land on your lips as if you’re dead.
In their pens, cattle lament, sigh, fart and
Regurgitate fond memories. I wouldn’t mind
Me a steak right about now, though with my
Budget, Chinese is hot and decent enough,
Except there’s a sign, “Due to food shortage,
We will be closed Monday and Tuesday.”

The Royal Buffet is built like a joke
Section of the Great Wall. What
Can they possibly be out of? Soy sauce,
Hoisin sauce, oyster sauce or MSG?
Working a serious wok requires two arms
And even your knee, for the gas lever.
As you labor, flames lick your crotch.

Nudged along by history, infrastructure,
Hunger and chance, I end up shading
My eyes to look at a showroom gravestone
That flaunts laser engraved tractor, barn and
Two turkeys, with the cock spreading feathers.
Thanks to technology, even a peasant
Can be interred ostentatiously. Once
A year, a nylon flag can be planted,
Like an asterick, onto his memory.

Flags drape dead men and a dying
Nation that’s not going down without
Shooting, bombing, droning and voting.
Flags are all over McCook. In a window,
A teddy bear is togged like a soldier.
Another cub fills a patriotic tub.
On a bench, a silhouette of a soldier
Kneels next to a Christian grave. Above him,
There is an eagle, a flag and a poem that

Starts, “Don’t weep for me / Oh land of the free.
When it was my time to fall / Twas
For my country’s call.” It finishes,
“And in her freedom and her courage /
I’ll continue to live.” At the theater,
A playbill announces a 9/11 play
To benefit the McCook Fire Department.
On a porch, a molded resin flag has yellowed.

Tramping in the sun for hours, my yellowness
Reverts to red. Red enough, I need beer,
So I ask the white mailman, “Sir, where can I
Get a drink around here? Like, a tavern?”
“Old Sarge’s is where you need to go! Good luck!”
Unsure if I need fortune to get there or
Simply to get sloshed there, I barge in.

Describing a late 19th century
Nebraska town, Willa Cather,
“The dwelling-houses were set about
Haphazard on the tough prairie sod; some
Of them looked as if they had been moved
In overnight, and others as if they were
Straying off by themselves, headed
Straight for the open plain.”

Thirteen decades later, the buildings
Appear provisionally more permanent,
But with a persistent drought, the soil
Is again truculent, so that these burgs
May just be blown away, like dead bugs.
Tallgrass and buffaloes counterattack.
Indians, punks and failed writers kick weeds.
Soon enough, then, there will be fewer shacks
On these prairies. Meanwhile, though, descendants

Of homesteaders are swilling Bud,
Bud Lite and Miller all around me.
One guy is sucking with a tiny straw
His one-dollar-shot special. I shout,
“Hey, what is that you’re drinking?”
We chitchat. He asks back, “What
Are you doing in town?” “I’ve never
Been to Nebraska, outside of a few
Hours in Omaha, so that doesn’t count.”

Eyes stern, he delivers, “There’s something
You’re not telling me!” Then, to another,
“Look at his eyes!” Meaning my eyes,
Mind and whatever else are not normal
To his round, red eyes. Still drunker, he asks,
“When are you leaving?” “In a few hours,”
I say, “Tonight.” “Good, we don’t need
More of your kind around!” “What kind?!”
The cheap shot drinker doesn’t answer.

Drumbeating for conquest, Walt Whitman
In “Pioneers! O Pioneers!” sought to
Galvanize “O you youths, western youths”
Of his “resistless, restless race!” His kind.
“Swift! to the head of the army!—swift!”
From Jamestown on, this land was cleared
And ethnic cleansed for a specific kind.

Buffalo Bill killed 4,000 bisons.
Tourists shot bisons from moving trains.
To slaughter bisons is to wipe out Indians.
Blanched bison skulls rose up to the moon.
This world had to be reshaped and whitewashed.
With the beast gone, McCook High School’s
Football team is called the Bisons, of course.

It must be said, though, the unkind
Kind-focused man is not emblematic
Of McCook. Others are much more friendly.
Let’s listen to 50-year-old Jason,
“I’ve worked on oil rigs in Colorado,
But not North Dakota, since my bones
Can’t deal with the extreme cold. Colorado
Is cold enough, but it doesn’t get to thirty
Or forty degrees below zero. I hope
To move to the Gulf Coast soon. I’ve never
Seen the ocean. I grew up very poor.”

Half a mile away, there’s Club Paradise,
With a beach scene on its sign. McCook is
Nearly a thousand miles from salt water.
Maybe there’s a Hail Storms and Blizzards Bar
In Miami, with a snowplow on its sign?

Gaunt, bespectacled, smooth jowled, unsmiling,
Seventy-eight-year-old Will, “I’ve driven trucks
My entire working life, been to every state,
But I like my home state, Nebraska, best.
In fact, everything East of the Ohio River
Can go to hell or sink into the damn sea!
I’m still working because me and my wife
Don’t want to live on less. I’ll retire at 80.”

The longer you linger, the more each street
And street lamp will gossip behind your back,
So an old man can choose to embrace
His history, as woven into a spot,
Or he can try to shun it, but inside
Each person, the fallen houses still stand.
That said, Nebraska can’t be more home
Than any place else, for all of our edifices
Have only been blown here a few beers ago,
And with the next cheap shot, knocked down.
This mirage is conjured up by much fluids
Being sucked deliriously from raped earth.

Finally, a poster skeleton lifts
The venetian blinds, then two doors down,
On a sweatshirt, there’s a football helmeted
Skull and crossbones, “A tradition
Of toughness. Nebraska Corn Huskers.”




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