As I range about the High Plains—sparse trees turned red,
I think of Maggie’s hair. Sweetness for the risk of a call—
my self-denial the mark of a true loner, but, having made rounds,
and followed dead leads, I stop in Red Cloud, “Home
of Willa Cather,” to wait as a phone rings. After five rings
she answers, sounding winded and surprised—

says she can’t talk now, asks where I’m staying,
says she’ll call later.

A Christian would call it cheating, but it keeps me alive
between Holbrook and Hastings where I stay at the Starlite—
all coral and turquoise, real tile floors, chrome wire towel racks,
where I remember the first time I saw her—standing in a station,
so perfectly Catholic, a mark for a con or amorous Angel—
hair the color of faded brick, looking for love, and all
the unscripted pleasures of fresh life, but mostly love.

Now, I get a letter each Christmas—yearbook proofs
of children I keep in a drawer of calling cards, dead batteries,
broken watches, and other things I can’t live without. Then,
there are furtive calls when he's away—when she questions everything.

I tell her she is the halo of my life—grace to a man caught
in the middle of his day. I tell her I haven’t had an honest kiss
in ten years.

Outside, tube-lights pop and snicker. The sky laces over, pink,
with jet-trail and high cirrus. There are pauses we've learned
to accept, before I wish her good night, prop my feet, and watch
the light grow thick with flies. I am a painting by Hopper—
a man in a window. I'm between lives and know it.