Just a few snaps from an afternoon spent wandering Council Bluffs, Iowa.
Still Life at Big Lake
We rode our bikes to a fat unripe pear. It was a Big Lake we wandered around
and found torn edges, yellowing and curved up at the corners.
It was a half-moon pear sliced through with pavement
swallowed in cornflower blue flat wash when it rained.
There was a playground dangling in the distance,
with busted swings on rusted chains.
No children went there or the ball field or the lake whose shallow pear bottom was a swamp with a “no fishing” sign sticking out. Rumor was,
it was descended from a great iceberg,
but you can’t see that in the frame. There’s just pale yellow loess rising around it, lined with trees twisting to a vanishing point.
Our grandfather was born and drowned there
but we climbed out
and ran away.
