The Right Whale in Iowa

The shag rug of a Great Plains buffalo, a flightless bird gone to stone: over its fellow keepsakes, into the archives of air, the whale hauled a harvest of dust. In the ripples of glass sealed over songbird skins, I wavered. What could be said for love? From the Full-Serv to the Self-Serv Island at the Gulf station next door, landlocked waves shivered in a row of corn. The great flukes lifted. A Milky Way scarred the underside more vast than the Midwestern night. Dark cargoes would give themselves up to these shallows that waited to take home the sailor, home to the sea of fossilized coral upon whose shoals just down the road the motels of Coralville lay sprawled. Here would lie a ring scratched by a scrivener with florid hand, In thy breast my heart does rest flung back to shore, here rest two coins face to face, joined by the salt that turned them faceless as they turned to each other.