The Beatles in Elk Horn

Two years on from news clips of Russian missiles

heading for Castro’s Cuba before getting to me,

the Beatles’ She Loves You invaded Elk Horn’s

homes like subversive messages from Khrushchev

on our deluxe black and white TVs.

It’s 1964 and our small-town school still drilled us in

air-raid practices under wooden desks with a terrified

face between the knees and time for alternative dreams:

nuclear death, or English haircuts to shake on

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah and drive all the girls to screams.

We watched them on Ed’s all-American Show

altered in the suggestions of such change.

In the moments beyond that need to listen

it was absorbing the same instant of shock that

hit when Clay stole the history of Liston.

How they still startled in clean-cut suits and ties –

harmonies as pure as Country and Western or a hymn.

It was an Iowa revolution from afar

and airwaves would whirl like a Midwestern tornado

to change our landscapes from there and within.