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Crop Duster Jerk-off: A Poetry of AbuseAuthor(s): John KinsellaSource: The Iowa Review, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Fall, 2004), p. 47Published by: University of IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20151842 .
Accessed: 12/06/2014 19:40
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Crop Duster Jerk-off: a poetry of abuse
The crop duster jerk-off is strafing just over the rise,
dropping clouds of fallout over "green light" wheat;
he prides himself on his skill in tossing the plane about: small, but not insect-like?
in spite of the warning-sign paint-job: red and yellow stripes?it's a plane,
just a plane tanked up with chemicals.
He touts its fragility with an incessant buzz, a throttling up that draws attention:
flicking about, if it comes down it will
take us all out. This isn't "terrorism"?
There's a strong wind blowing in our direction.
The baby is out of the house, for which I am grateful, but it will come back to an invisible coating. A new layer to our occupation. They kill to make us grow, to feed the population. There's a chain
of profit as perpetual and cyclical as a teething ring. Yelling into the tinctured air
makes you hoarse, and the pilot
gets off on it: it's in the loins, like reproduction,
through sperm count dropping and the wheat changing colour.
47
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