Late spring, 1983

Oh so young man

Ralph sitting on a fence beneath a shady tree

Where the Greyhound usually stops

Peering across the rolling fields

Grown high with unmown grass

And dandelion puffballs

Paid homage to by green-black bottle flies

That Ralph can hear a-buzzing from the road

The weathered silo juts into the mustard sky

A fat red bullet propped upright in the haze

He cannot see the farmhouse at its side

But he imagines the screen door yawning wide

Just now, and the girl in the denim dress dragging her

Canvas bag behind.

There is a yellowed trail that cuts across the field

To this very road, and the hour is near for Brenda

To appear, her scarlet face full of haste and all apology

He imagines them in double seats

As the bus whines eastward towards Sioux Falls.

His hand entwined with hers

Sometimes gliding uninvited

To her intimate folds

Full of hot dreams and lusty thoughts

He grins

Failing to notice the fields

Have not been trammeled

By her hurrying feet

And no sound disturbs

The morning save the flies.

Later, he stands there helplessly

Before the sneezing-to-a-stop

Silver-blue torpedo

The engine throbbing its annoyance

The driver glaring from behind

His cobalt shades, all questions and accusations

As Ralph gapes blankly at the field

“Go on,” he cries at last. “Go on.”

Seeing the bus leaving him, his dreams moldering in the carry-all

He throws rocks against the weathered fence

Dazed in the Nebraska fog, augmented

By the swirling dust and blue-gray smoke

He turns his angry Timberlands for home

Half a mile away, Brenda stirs,

Hauled up at last

From guiltless sleep.

In her second story bedroom

She yawns and chuckles, thinking,

“He couldn’t believe I was serious,

Could he?” While wondering:

“Did the poor fool really get on the bus?”

10/24/2002

Author's Note: For Paganini, upon request and for remembering...

Posted on 10/24/2002
Copyright © 2025 Ken Harnisch