Contents
Selecting a Reader
First Snow
An Old Photograph
The Constellation Orion
The Salesman
Old Soldiers' Home
Self-Portrait at Thirty-Nine
August
At the Bus Stop Next to the Funeral Home
Visiting Mountains
The Leaky Faucet
The Soul of Twins
A Frozen Stream
Living Near the Rehabilitation Home
Late February
A Drive In the Country
Spring Plowing
Sitting All Evening Alone In the Kitchen
Sure Signs
The Skeleton In the Closet
A Summer Night
In a Country Cemetery In Iowa
The Man With the Hearing Aid
The Very Old
Walking Beside a Creek
Book Club
At the End of the Weekend
Uncle Adler
In the Corners of Fields
How to Make Rhubarb Wine
Late Lights In Minnesota
The Afterlife
A Widow
So this Is Nebraska
Fort Robinson
How to Foretell a Change In the Weather
Snow Fence
In an Old Apple Orchard
An Empty Place
In the Kitchen, at Midnight
After the Funeral: Cleaning Out the Medicine Cabinet
The Grandfather Cap
Shooting a Farmhouse
Beer Bottle
Sleeping Cat
North of Alliance
Late September
Carrie
For a Friend
Grandfather
Looking for You, Barbara
Pocket Poem
Moles
Notes On the Death of Nels Paulssen, Farmer, at the Ripe Old Age of 93
Advice
After My Grandmother's Funeral
A Hot Night In Wheat Country
Five P.M.
Abandoned Farmhouse
The Blind Always Come as Such a Surprise
Furnace
West Window
Boarding House
The Geek
A Letter from Aunt Belle
At the Bait Stand
The Tattooed Lady
A Death at the Office
There Is Always a Little Wind
The Widow Lester
Houses at the Edge of Town
The Old Woman
A Place In Kansas
Tom Ball's Barn
My Grandfather Dying
The Red Wing Church
Highway 30
Birthday
The Failed Suicide
A Hairnet with Stars
The Goldfish Floats to the Top of His Life
They Had Torn Off My Face at the Office
A Presidential Poem
Year's End
New Year's Day
A Dry Winter Letter to Friends
Walking to Work
Sunday Morning
About the Author