The logs of wool jersey plastered with labels 
Lay in the lint and litter, columns in a heap 
Like a Doric temple left at the shipping dock, 

Here bricks are so rare they are like agates
We wonder who would carry them so far
Here I feel good because I have nothing
I am thinking about

 They want one of every kind and they
can't help it, it's an addiction,
the house full of novelty radios,

 Riding to the Great Northern Wilderness
we sang about self-correction in the club car,
dreamed up new crimes to put in our autobiographies

Where Are You Going With That Wrench

A switch went and is going to take up the trip.
Jiggle the handle, engineers! Getting out of the train
to fix it yourselves? Be serious! We have

Well, Ford, people like us, we
Don't have to worry. We have the river
Coming up just here. Dancing came

Why shouldn’t you too have a woman?

Because U.S. 36 has always poured possibilities
through your hometown, you squeal smoking out of A&W Root Beer

All this happened when I was young:

I stopped knowing anybody. I waited for somebody to know me. I knew most of my strangers in depth; acquaintanceship stifled this; strangeness had to be the bond. Maybe I was too small to be seen. 

She was born Sarah Gossett Ballenger—
Sarah our mother's proper name, Gossett our mother's
family name, Ballenger the name of her father.

Sometimes in the evening I see
coming toward me, from a distance,
a kind of blossom: huge, blue, nodding