The Murder of Louisa Suckraw

I
When I first went there, little was left
of Pleasant Hill, Nebraska, but a tavern
and store on a dusty crossroads corner
with a dozen fancy pickups parked outside
in the bitter steak-and-chicken smoke
from the kitchen exhaust. In a field
was a red-brick schoolhouse, surrounded
by rusty machinery and cars, with a sign
on its side: ANTIQUES. A few houses
stood scattered about. The rest of the town
was gone, the buildings on the other corners
torn down and the rubble plowed under.