Potato chip-colored old man, I don’t know you
or where you pedaled your bicycle as I
drove by, just as birds don’t know anything
of the pockets of air they fly past. We were
on Main Street in Osage, Iowa. I was driving
to see a dying relative for the last time. You
were thin and bald, and in your green windbreaker
you reminded me of a turtle. Driving on was like
turning a page and watching one story become
another. Outside Sioux Falls I saw a white car
so dirt-packed I couldn’t read the license plate,
the way I can’t tell time in my sleep. Later I saw
some cows lazing in front of a “Wear Fur” sign.
I forgot my name and wished I knew yours
as the sun hit the pavement before setting.
I slept in a hotel bed and dreamed of flying
and then falling beneath the sound of my own breathing.
I dreamed of the broad curves of Crazy Woman
Creek Road, which I had driven down days before
as the sky hazed over. I dreamed of dying
but it was like a turtle entering water, the water
creasing and then smoothing itself out. Your eyes
had met mine for a second, and I could have sworn
that something passed between us, as if you
tossed a skipping stone through my window
and it landed flat in my hand.

–Tom C. Hunley,
Scotch Tape World (2013)
Accents Publishing

More from Scotch Tape World and Tom C. Hunley:

• “Um”
• Tom C. Hunley’s “Most Important Thing”
• “Having Banished the Musicians” from Bigger than They Appear
• Accents Poets Nominated for the Pushcart
• “No One to Ask for Directions”

Tom C. Hunley is an associate professor of English at Western Kentucky University and the director of Steel Toe Books. Among his previous books are The Poetry Gymnasium (McFarland & Company, Inc., 2012); Annoyed Grunt (Imaginary Friend Press, 2012); Greatest Hits (Pudding House, 2010, Gold Invitational Series); Octopus (Logan House, 2008, Winner of the Holland Prize); Teaching Poetry Writing: A Five-Canon Approach (Multilingual Matters LTD., 2007, New Writing Viewpoints Series); My Life as a Minor Character (Pecan Grove, 2005, winner of a national chapbook contest); Still, There’s a Glimmer (WordTech Editions, 2004); and The Tongue (Wind Publications, 2004). He divides his time between Kansas and Oz.