girl from iowa

she was from iowa,
somewhere. i don't even
remember her name anymore,
but i imagined
her driving
on a dirt road
that was carved out
between endless fields
of wheat and corn,
perhaps on her father's
tractor, in a cloud
of dry yellow dust,
dropping her
off at the interstate
with a small polka dotted
black and white suitcase
full of t-shirts and more
cut off shorts and jeans,
where she would catch
a greyhound bus that would
take her to the train,
that would go to the
airport and from there
to north carolina where
she would borrow her
sister's 69 firebird
that burned a quart of oil
every hundred miles
to drive to meet me
at nag's head, where i
was borrowing a friend's
beach house on the bay
side for the weekend.
she liked to make a grid
of ketchup on her egg
omelette and talked
really loud as if she
was deaf or thought
perhaps that you were.
she had been in a motor
cycle accident years
ago that left her
with long worm like
scars imbedded in
her arms and legs
where the bones broke.
they looked like shark
bites. she didn't try
to hide them and said
that it was just a one
time ride around
the block with her high
school friend ernie.
he went too fast trying
to impress her and skidded
out sending them both
flying into the street
against the curb and
a fire hydrant. she made
it through, but ernie
didn't. for months the
town put flowers out next
to the hydrant where he
smashed his head. she told
me all of this while tapping
the end of the ketchup
bottle to get the lines
just right, straight across
and down in a quilted
pattern on her plate
of eggs. not unlike the
aerial view of farms
in iowa.