A Cautionary Tale

South Dakota, USA

i.
We tried to get to the house made of corn but we never made it. It alluded us. The town was small and squat, a barely made out outline—but it was there. The corn house was too, I imagine, along with the museum of 4,000+ dolls. Can you, can you see it? Was it really in a museum or was it a converted barn, an old Victorian, or an old wooden outline plastered over and shaped into form.

ii.
83 miles per hour. I never thought of this as running. As too fast. A loping highway pace. Ground cover

iii.
A drug store that spanned a city block. Would that be a mile? I believe the name began with a W. Maybe you’ve heard the name before. Can remember its significance.

iv.
Exited Wyoming only to enter South Dakota. A flat surfaceless place. I could see the heat which means I could see the air. W was so inconsistent, a valley of curves and dips, my toes felt cooled by the changes, curling and uncurling. SD was the cruel joke. The deflated expanse at the end of a roller coaster. That quick jerk as you slide into stop. Your slow exhale.

v.
Red tinted highways, bumpy mediums. Road construction can be so present. A turn off into a one gas station town. The bank has no ATM. The teller blinks. A fat child in a jumper is walking along the painted yellow lines.

vi.
The middles of everything are fat and dangerously round. It might be the heat. Drops of sweat are beading on my back. They fall in intervals. This feels no closer to the start or end of anything.

vii.
The spaces leaving room for the unheard, the unmentioned, the refused rememberings. The cat in the carrier meows, paws at the nylon. He is only stretching.

viii.
Recounted only in memory, found in the left most corner of your brain. The one I left along the road. The one I asked to leave the car and not come back. The yellow carbon flapping, skittish along the dash. Proof of a moment.