Read by Aaron Anstett
An inmate at the Winnebago County Jail escaped for a number of hours before north Iowa authorities captured him.
— KTTC, NBC affiliate, February 12, 2010
When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone?
— Job, 7:4
There was a time along the river,
in the snow and cold. I didn't know
where I was going. I had come crashing
through river birch, willows,
sumac that tore my feet.
I had no shoes. My pants were a problem. Baggy, striped.
I took them off. Everything,
I took it off. There
along the frozen river I stripped bare-ass naked –
fat carp were iced into the falls, some big dark owl came over
quiet as suffering Christ,
and I was my body,
like a boy out all day and who cares how cold it is.
My breaths steamed out in chuffs and huffs,
my tongue tasted weeds and water,
black leach-track stones
up from the river's muddy bottom. Beneath the ice,
even there, the river knows. So I followed.
Wherever it was going.
Red flags trailing from my blue feet.
Out the country club's picture window, I guess, someone
saw me. Or my bleeding.
And now I sit here warm as toast,
my body lost, toeless feet black as stones.
Why? What's it worth?
I tell you every night
I dream the Winnebago River, long wing of ice
and leaning penitent trees. Miracle carp
unfroze, flopping
bare-assed in the snow. Sirens. And this time I stop,
still as river birch: Above me my owl god
of flight and silence,
and having with my own eyes seen,
I am Job. The falling snow? Not silver coins or rings,
not some thousand-thousand sheep.
For as they rush out –
rifles, bullhorns, blackshoes, blackshoes –
on my rucked and filthy skin
there is this light-shot skin of snow.