"Going to Zero"
1.
A canvas with less turpentine, more hard edges, less bleeding,
that was good for beauty, Frankenthaler in Art News
in the dining car crammed with parkas and laptops
micro-waved cellophane, plastic plates and canvas bags,
and the valley under fog as the cows disappeared
and when the green came back into view, I could see
the SUVs floating on the Thruway, the cows oblivious
to the revved engines of trucks. The river glistened
all the way to Albany, and I could see flags on Baptist churches
and resurrection trailers, "God Bless America" on pick-ups—
"United We Stand" laminated to billboards
as the fog settled then lifted, and when I woke
a flag the size of a football field hung from the gray tower of the GW,
where the tractor-trailers jammed beneath its hem
as something sifted down on the silver-plated Hudson.
And then the lights went out.
Peter Balakian's poem "Going to Zero" will be in his new book, Ziggurat, appearing this fall. He directs creative writing at Colgate.
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