Manhattan, Montana

The coffee tastes terrible, as if the urns
were used in mining sulfur: burnt
out again, raw throats, red eyes, hundreds
of miles more to drive. I have a wife now.
I still wish for a dog, a big ugly mutt
waiting where the road curves, Manhattan and I-90.

So she says, Shall we roam around for a year?
My wife sips the hot coffee the hue of thin mud
at the lip of a creek. I glance away from her eye
as I watch some geezer, tough in flannel, dungarees,
cut up to the counter to order a beer without words.
He sucks up the sharp suds, stares out into the road.

My wife’s sharp mind clamps in her throat
as I picture her cool kisses and the bite of her tongue.
Manhattan becomes a ghost of a town,
fallen rocks and rotting timbers, the keys
to the car left on the table, the sun’s red euphoria
on the grimed diner glass telling our story.

Dr. D. Iasevoli lives and teaches in the North Country of New York State. He taught on Rikers Island for a couple of years, and now works on a book about the history of educational efforts in state prisons.

Photos by Ryann Liebenthal, taken between Portland, Oregon and New York City in August of 2008.