If I lived here
I would not find the cloud constructions
or the flattened topography remarkable.
I would not dwell on the broadband
black angus dominating the surface.
I would not be surprised
that the vocabulary of local radio contains more
than farfetched country lyrics and improbable preachers,
that there’s a place for Shostakovich,
who wrote this stunning piano piece
when he was just fifteen
as a dissonant soundtrack for a road
through a land of football
and beef and easy handshakes
and slow motion deliberations
that somehow fit together like equations,
where angus is still the watchword
but where Shostakovich ekes out a living too,
and signs his name on the back of the
“Greetings from Nebraska” postcard
in a cursive suggesting mirth.

Michael Philips

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/shostakovich-in-nebraska/