A Hole in Nebraska

I.

There must be a hole in Nebraska,
A bottomless chasm of dark,
A mysterious gap of desire and decay
Into which no wise man would embark.

If you went there, you'd find much detritus:
A cell phone, a painting, a ring,
And a Kenmore Elite Mesa washing machine
(The pit tends to soil everything).

At least that's what twelve-year olds conjure
To comprehend vacuums of care --
A way to ignore the unspoken:
Why did dad spend all his money there?

II.

No man knows how it came to be dug there,
Nor can you tour Lincoln to see
Where the love of a father went wasting;
Where the pitiless woman doomed me.

Fortnightly they fell into canyons
Of pleasure and peril and sweat,
Forswearing cords binding them upward
To the sun-lovers they would forget.

At first, my dear pater could counter
His descent with resplendent goodwill,
Blacking out the crevasse of betrayal
With the smiles and beguiles of a shill.

But emerging from Venus' chasm,
These dreamers would crave dark again,
And like sibilant symbiont vampires,
They'd slink down, drink deeply, to sin.

Until finally father no longer
Could hide the essential deceit:
That his soul was now buried in cornfields
And his eyes held the sighs of the deep.

III.

For years I avoided Nebraska,
Just as I did deny my old man,
But in March I felt drawn to encounter
The crack that consumed our good clan.

So I rented a car in Chicago,
Drove out through a blizzard alone,
Across the still-frozen Missouri
To the place where my father had gone.

As I shuffled through drifts on the sidewalk,
My eyes beckoned closer my prey --
Every fifty-odd aged old woman
Who I happened to pass on my way.

But none would gaze at me with hunger;
In none of their pupils were pits
That could cast a corruption upon you
No effort would ever acquit.

Midway through the day I sought refuge
At a bar in Haymarket on Q
And shook off my white-pasted trenchcoat
Before she approached me, on cue.

Her eyes had been carved out of emeralds
Verdant and lively with fire,
And they matched the green glint on her finger,
As bright as a princess-cut star.

She smiled as she drew out my order
While I struggled to speak and not stare
But I could not avoid glancing upward
As the light spun delights in her hair.

I've mostly forgotten what happened
From then until Mickleson's closed,
When she took my ninth glass of Warsteiner,
Made a gesture, said "It's time to go."

IV.

We stalked through a wedding-white landscape,
Two dark-featured figures alone,
To a small Craftsman cottage on North 24th,
Not familiar, but neither unknown.

She reached out her hand and directed
Our path 'round the back of the house
To some grime-covered flagstones descending,
As my eyes did decline through her blouse.

Once I entered the dimly-lit cellar,
Which smelled of a swamp when in bloom,
My mind was abuzz with faint warning
While my hands sought her flesh in the gloom.

Before long we were tumbling tightly,
Virile youths seeking solace in skin,
With no thought of the past, just of pleasure
And of finding what depths lay within.

But as I knelt o'er her, beginning
My worshipful work, I was struck
By the perfect round darkness her mouth made
As our merger converged in a --

And here was a hole in Nebraska,
And I was inside, in the midst
Of a gash with a pit in a crater unlit;
With a woman I couldn't resist.

In a panic, I threw myself upward
And pointed a sweat-covered hand
At the stunning, stunned creature below me
And her green-glinting, gold-fashioned band:

"Who gave you that ring on your finger,"
I ordered, now shaking with rage.
She convulsed, pulled the sheets tight around her,
A siren now silenced, now caged.

Strangely happy, I cast about idly,
Scanning bookshelves and wallboard until
Two shadowbound figures, framed smartly,
Were found, making love with some skill.

I laughed much too hard, told the woman,
"You have it still, too, do you not?"
The Lorelei gasped, yelled "Who are you?"
I intoned, "I am what you begot."

Terrified of the judgment before her,
She lunged at the jeans on the floor,
But I snatched them away, searched the pocket,
Then threw the small phone at the door.

"There's only one more thing to find here,"
I said, and she sobbed in her hands
While I searched the small cell for a corner
That might hold the last mark of the man.

Of course, there it was, churning softly,
Nearly buried beneath the soiled clothes,
Still preserved in my mind, thirteen years now
After Sears charged the card Father chose.

V.

All driftwood must feel, after crashing
Ashore from its turbulent trip,
Some relief, along with a faint longing
For tumult, the rise and the dip.

And once a proud elk, once prevented
From having his way with a cow
By a bull locking horns and defending,
Will do the same, once he learns how.

Though no lesson from wilderness tells us
What happens when cravings collide
To confirm the worst fears we imagined
And leave us bereft of all pride.

I found myself thus in that basement:
Surrounded by signs of my fall,
With my innocence properly shattered,
And caught in a jealous God's thrall.

Emerging from hazed introspection,
My eyes opened wide to observe
The doe who had drawn me within her,
Whose visage had regained some nerve.

In her undulant hand shook a hammer --
In her sea-colored eyes shook her rage --
But her legs barely bore her above me
And I calmly arose, took the stage:

"My darling," I murmured, "please leave me.
Your damage has been so complete
That nothing you'd do would compound it.
Now go, and enjoy my defeat."

My lover's response was confounding.
She dropped the steel tool on the ground
Then grappled my neck with her fingers
And screamed while she squeezed her hands down.

Undeterred, I bent down, grabbed the hammer,
And as her nails clawed through my locks,
I tapped her skull rather lightly
As one nails through a cypress-wood box.

Having dragged the girl out of the dungeon
And away from the house to the wood,
I returned to the hole that unmade me
To make whole what my dad never would.

I retired on the bed once I finished.
I stared at the floorboards above.
I flicked the match onto the mattress.
I bathed in the waves of his love.

Have you ever been freed from a pit, friend?
When the first streaks of light enter in?
As the hole in Nebraska burned open,
Did our men escape from their sin?