I try to imagine you
like names are precursors

or premonitions. You stay
somewhere without a body.

By no means are you
post-modern. I do not need

more sensation, I need more
friends who write. More

who read, and make me feel
uneducated. I want you

to teach courses without
tuitions and still get

a Biothermal dynamics
professor’s salary. You feel

this need for family,
to dance, to misshape the world

as a play. Drama is left
as a nameless reminder

of our love of self-help.
No matter how hard I close

my eyes you never show
or talk or kiss. Tell me

what does your voice sound
like – angel or typewriter?

–Dan Nowak,
Of a Bed Frame
Accents Publishing

And I thought Nebraska couldn’t make me
any whiter, but here I am a new snow angel.

Call me Michael, or Ishmael, or anything you want
until the second date. Then let me become

your snow white knight with post-feminist, post-
humanist chivalry. Our laptops are horrible lap

dancers. I pale in these winter lights, try to blend
in like Bob Ross. With no happy trees, friendly mountains,

or inanimate people to block the snow, how am I to stay
dry? Nebraska makes me hunger for crackers

and cannibalism is only a bad idea if you
are the last one left. I am still waiting on

my echoes from Denver. The Pony Express
feels slow when all the streets are yet to be plowed

–Dan Nowak,
Of a Bed Frame
Accents Publishing

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

Underneath me, the concrete bites
hot in a September sun. I sit,
by the tarmac for the taxi that mightnot come, feeling dirty and bored. Complicit
Philadelphia throbs vowels.
My mouth hungers for uncompromising

kisses. Today is the day we are vowing
ourselves unsingle. Our marriage
carriage is late with no bands, just towels

stolen from motels. I sit and age
as you pack box of books after
box of beautiful books into your car

without help from my back. Sure,
after I finally begged a ride, you
were ready to drive the pastures

of Pennsylvania. We sang the sky blue
between your solid apartment
and our crystallizing future.

You forgot your dishware in a cabinet:
glasses, plates, everything to eat
left in our paper plate hands. We bit

our flesh, making love without wait
on the other’s tongue. We hardly
left the state before life turned away

and started breaking politely
into bite sized pieces, each
tasting more and more like history.

–Dan Nowak,
Of a Bed Frame
Accents Publishing