Kirby Quackenbush:
September Moon

The old houses, dusted with moonshine,
creak in the dry and dragging wind
that pokes about this town:
where potato salad and cold beans
are eaten in stuffy kitchens;
where, in tubs of tepid water,
ponytailed girls who love fast horses
slide pink soap between their thighs;
where skinny boys lift weights
in bedrooms gaudy with football stars;
where doctors read comic books
and lawyers read numbers on checks;
where sex-starved wives wait in the nude
for tipsy husbands to be bored
with beer glass and cue stick;
where children sleep like stones
and hall clocks tick and tock
and cats yowl and dogs growl,
as another hot Labor Day winds down
in the webbed and wrinkled dark;
and I, moondust on my face,
return from a long walk to the depot,
the depot of many fierce goodbyes;
and it's just this I want to say:
Luanne, my lost and lonely girl,
if you want me on this summer night,
run through the grass now and kiss me.


Dave Etter, Alliance Illinois . (Granite Falls, Minn: Spoon River Poetry Press, 1983).