Alissa Fleck

MINNESOTA

Everyone has cracked open like cement,
a long line of jagged-edged people
from here to the farthest place you can imagine
(but you can't imagine life going on
very far away from you.) You are fascinated
by the sudden, cruel presence
of so many cuckoo clocks
in your periphery; nature
subsumed by nausea, by horror story.
Trapped in a giant wolves' cage, them harmless
unless agitated, you wake up to their fangs
wrapped around the tendons of your lower thigh,
and none of this comes close to the big one:
the imaginary tickings and zip-zipping flies
when you've lost at least an hour on the toilet
at 3 AM or so. A state
trooper pulled over
and old woman the other day,
a .45, a 9 mm, and a .38 stashed
in her vehicle, when asked what
she was so afraid of, she's quoted as saying,
not a fucking thing.