she's got spider web hair, and a skin like see through jelly with a porcelain stare that moves the walls of my belly but she used to have a cherubs glow that lit a lamp gas nose her eyes were full of hot wine and her body was a rose now, she moved like a liquid through the boys of Mason City had every gatling gun-slinging soldier every grease monkey, every Walter Mitty she finally settled on some corn-husker with cotton-seed teeth under a diamond smile dressed up for San Francisco but held up in Mason City for a while now her man used to work to make the corn belt grow while she would dream of a city with the soft heart of San Francisco dream a quiet burrow for a husband, child and wife and poke another hole into the hard American life now San Francisco is no place for a Mason City couple you can get thrown into a turbine and get lost in the shuffle she keeps everything she owns in a Saratoga trunk that's going out of style dressed up for San Francisco but held up in Mason City for a while