Somewhere in Kansas

 

What I keep hoping is that words
are like boomerangs

and come back, or that he will fall
into his own trap;

I keep hoping to see a hand
(just a hand) writing on the wall;

I want the people to see he has no
clothes, and most of all

I want some little dog
to pull aside the curtain.

 

 

Author of the article

Joyce Sutphen’s first collection of poems, Straight Out of View, won the Barnard New Women Poets Prize; Coming Back to the Body was a finalist for a Minnesota Book Award, and Naming the Stars won a Minnesota Book Award in Poetry. She grew up on a farm in Stearns County, Minnesota, and she teaches literature and creative writing at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter. Her latest book, Modern Love & Other Myths, was published by Red Dragonfly Press in 2015. She is the second Minnesota Poet Laureate, succeeding Robert Bly.