Prairie Knights Casino

It’s true. Some nights I leave 

the disarray of donations, frost-lipped boxes spilling 
               uselessly into the dark; the woodstove, always begging us 

to chap our hands on the hatchet 
                                              in the wind-raw night and— 
                                                                                              I drive and drive 
to the fluorescence of Prairie Knights, promised land 

of internet and limp quesadillas. Here, camp blossoms 
        into the buffet line and business center; our phones find every

outlet and our hat-smashed hair oils 
                            the vinyl chairs beneath the bustle 

display and in the pool’s chlorinated hall. Everybody shares 
the latest gossip: who’s running the cookshack, 
                             the oncoming snow, the day’s arrests. 

But I find myself hiding in the windowless orange light 
             of the Schwan’s machine room; alone 
                         to lean the spasms in my back against the glow 

of the beef stroganoff button. For the first time in a week, I take off 
              my coat. I’ve come with notebooks to grade, funds to raise for bales to keep us from the cold; but instead I scroll and I scroll: stare at blooms

of lavender lattes, friends on hikes, at bars, cooking dinner, arms 
              posed around their husbands and I never 
                                                                                 say anything to them. 

Maybe I’ll cocoon in the casino forever, dragging soggy fries through an                eternal 
              river of ketchup or I’ll drive the fourteen hours to a city where I own 

a bed. But even as the empty vein 
              of the pipeline pushes further and further, as storm-bent 
tents sing the songs of hollow shells, and my spine

forgets how to hold me: I’ll drive north

past the pastured horses, ice glittering on their eyelashes, the cars 
                            blizzarded into the ditch. Head north toward the gate 
where someone will shine a beam in my car, say go on in, welcome home. 

These leavings a privilege I want and don’t want. The night a salt shaker of            stars.