Heartland
Open blue skies
with a flat expanse underneath.
Hours saunter by.
Old brick buildings stand
and reminisce of the days when they were appreciated.
Now the retailers and fabric stores barely scratch by.
The transmission in the work truck is shot.
The freight trains are the constant of this land,
as is the dark brown soil.
Country music slides in between the ads
for hardware stores
and the town’s upcoming fireworks show.
The obese and flabby young mothers
make their weekly pilgrimage to Wal-Mart,
where diapers are priced the same as a carton of smokes.
Nascar-themed lighters
are ready for that last minute impulse buy.
The stretched tattoos on the fatty shoulders.
Fat feet stuffed into Crocs sandles.
Birth control items are outnumbered by religious candles.
The slaughter house near by processes 800 head of cattle each day.
Skulls are smashed before they know what is happening,
and the skittering hooves fall silent.
Hides are pulled away from the bodies like grotesque banana peels.
Nothing is wasted and nothing is sacred.
Even the white trash won’t do this job.
Yet the Mexican and Somali immigrants
are willing to slosh through the ankle-deep blood and gore.
