“
Afterlife
It takes both hands to unfix the spike
he drove into the fence post, worrying dirt
loose from around its base. A spider spins
the ache in my throat. If he were here,
what would he be doing? I torch a phonebook,
watching the names and numbers burn.
I feel the fallen phone line, the horned lark
crushed in the mailbox's rusty throat.
Weevils become the dream work of fields,
the old shack set back in the tree line.
I'm tired of the corn, their fibrous heads.
I'm tired of the white cocoon in the old jam jar,
the fruit bat brimming with darkness.
Barbed wire, concrete slab, slag in the rusty water.
I walk the yard of Holsteins, dewlaps quivering,
nerves pulsing in the udders. Two miles away
the Wal-Mart is going in, barns giving way
to Pizza Hut, Penguin Point. I look across
the silent field. The plow is hard. My heart
is hard. Dirt. Distance. It does not end.
”
”