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Published on 2026-03-02 by Sydney Callahan
Been thinking about that little boy again.
Spider-man bag along the length of his
miniature torso; brown, watery foal’s eyes
roving the infinite corn fields of
Iowa, Missouri, Texas;
away, away, away.
Away from his pre-school teachers,
multiplication tables,
his mother.
His winter hat the color of cotton candy
which emerges once Minnesota snow clears.
When you look real close
out the window at those U.S.A fields
you’ll see that corn is just corn, that
land is just land, that
all our footprints look
just the same as one another’s
no matter whose feet made them.
The little boy, ochre foal’s eyes spread wide,
imagines a flash of red in the distance
back beyond the corn fields,
a place where the evergreens
belong to everyone.
Spider-man. Come to save him.
To bring him home.
Of course, it’s more likely that the little boy
never saw a single U.S.A corn field
on his cross-country kidnapping.
Iowa, Missouri, Texas;
away, away, away.
Out across the infinite wheat,
Spider-man might not be there at all.
For they certainly never let him look out the window.
The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this blog are the author’s only and do not reflect an official position of the University of Minnesota, the Human Rights Program, or the College of Liberal Arts. As an institution of higher education that values and promotes free speech, civil discourse, and human rights, we welcome a variety of perspectives and opinions from our student contributors that are consistent with these values.
Sydney Callahan is a seventeen year old currently attending the University of Minnesota Twin Cities Postsecondary Enrollment Program. They have been writing for roughly four years, and their work has appeared in places such as The Weight Journal and The Goose, a literary magazine at the Perpich Center for Arts & Education. They are also a recent alum of the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio. When they aren’t writing, you could find them researching Arthurian mythology or bothering their two older sisters.