36
Cornhuskers
It is the same as why boys go running lickety-split
- away from a school-room geography lesson
- in April when the crawfishes come out
- and the young frogs are calling
- and the pussywillows and the cat-tails
- know something about geography themselves.
●●● I ask you for white blossoms.
I offer you memories and people.
I offer you a fire zigzag over the green and marching vines.
I bring a concertina after supper under the home-like apple trees.
I make up songs about things to look at:
- potato blossoms in summer night mist filling the garden with white spots;
- a cavalryman's yellow silk handkerchief stuck in a flannel pocket over the left side of the shirt, over the ventricles of blood, over the pumps of the heart.
Bring a concertina after sunset under the apple trees.
Let romance stutter to the western stars, "Excuse...me..."