Windmills wave their mute white hands
alongside the asphalt’s long lazy stripes of I-80

On the way out of town I took US-30 with
its unlimited access, harrowing four-way intersections

east-west traffic hurtling at 65 mph against
dirt crossroads where F-150s stop and swivel on a prayer

For miles US-30 is still a genteel 2-laner; it rollicks, rolls,
licks those Eastern Iowa hills, god-fearing contours they are.

My grandma tells me it makes her very sad sometimes
she doesn’t get to care for my granddad in his old age.

“I didn’t mean to give that up!” she protests. When I visit,
his colostomy bag slips out a tad beneath his navy polo

like a timid white flag, like a brittle piano key. Like a single
finger of a windmill bidding me go, go on, and never go back.