Within driving distance
of unincorporated Confidence,
located in the middle
of the bottom of the state,
this Iowa town has a population
a mere fraction of its cemetery:
112 according to the last
census, divided into 49
households and 29 families,
all but 0.9 of whom are the color
of the space between stanzas.
Not much happens in Promise.
Most work. Poverty is work, too.
So is marriage. Birth and death
are the same as everywhere else,
no more remarkable, no less
to grieve. Main Street runs
mundane through it all, offering
Main Street kinds of items:
coffee, supplements, floss
for your teeth. But today,
a church day, the wind is a sip
of sparkling lemonade from the south
at 6 miles per hour, the air a balmy
64 degrees and the humidity is more
like Miami at 93 percent. It’s clear
that spring has come on gopher feet
to the prairie, bringing the time
to restore the blended colors
of the mesic turf with the seeds
of black-eyed susan and smooth
blue aster. Invest in it. Revel.
For the next 90 days, attract
pollinators with blazing star
and showy goldenrod, bring back
independent bison to graze
like mailmen through all kinds
of weather, who will later tunnel
through 9 months of snow drifts
with the determined shovels
of their hooves to find ox-eye,
goat’s rue, and rattlesnake master,
who lead themselves to water
at deep-enough local ponds
that don’t freeze all the way down
to their muddy seats, and give
eco-tours to curious tourists
driving cross-country, allowing
the wealthy to hunt the herds
and feast on meat tasting
of sovereign natures and a place
living wildly up to its name.
–Jen Karetnick
Alyss 