“Dead Center” by Dan Nowak

We drink down Nebraska
in giant starry cups. The dirt
falls down our throats, past
our primes. Belt buckles ring
like liberty bells. The center
of the country, the spine of a
book, for every verso a recto.

There is a North Star dividing
lane running through I-80.
Runaway deer and raccoons
start up punk rock constellations;
they sing their bodies eclectic.
It is our job to clean the club
after the show, pick up stragglers.

There is something left behind
in all of us. Everyday becomes
an improper fraction, top-heavy
without tipping. We pray to
Newton to let us fall soon.
We steal the sun, the compass
rose, everything along the zipper.

Our pants sag under the weight
of this state. Muscles, like an out-
line, can no longer carry us.
Our skeletons envy the road kill,
envy the ease of oncoming traffic.
We welcome the pavement, the
folding neatly along our spines.

–Dan Nowak,
Of a Bed Frame
Accents Publishing

Dan Nowak’s first book, Recycle Suburbia, won the 2007 Quercus Review Poetry Series Award. He also has a chapbook, Burning the Arson Dictionary: Poems for Thomas McGrath published by RockSaw Press. Dan is co-founder and co-editor ofImaginary Friend Press and an editor for New Sins Press. Dan lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and enjoys that Lakefront Brewery is less than a mile from his home.

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