Iowa: At the End of November

There's lots of turkey and noodles

turkey and rice soup

turkey vegetable soup

turkey bouillon

turkey pot pies

It doesn't seem to be centered

in Des Moines or Iowa City

just kinda all over

The harvest is pretty much over

oh sure some farmer is just

finishing up the 160

over by the river

It's have turkey and fall asleep

until after Christmas

with all the annual service work

It's not actual sleep

It's the kinda sleep

on automatic

There's the tree and shopping

Cousin Shirley needs something

Nobody is giving away her secret

It's also the time of year

when Iowa

decides its motto

for the next year

Missouri next door

just keeps the same one

year after year

That's how boring Missouri is

Someone will have a bright idea

but as always down by the river

it's hold that thought

and wait a hundred years

Nobody cares that

the great-great grandfather

settled in Afton in the 1830s

or that the move back

from some other state

was a really good idea

You mean your family left

And now you recognize

your familial mistake

and you're trying to make up

for it

That begins the Iowa Shame

There's no albatross to hang

around your neck here

It's an empty corn cob

festooned with dried soy leaves

and a fresh pig's tail

You wear that until it falls off

Last year's motto was

Iowa

always the same

It came from the 1928

Iowa Bin of Great Thought

Notice there's only one thought

in that bin

I'm told there'll be another bin

in fifteen or twenty years

I'm thinking real hard

Barry G. Wick