There was a girl.
She left.
Taking with her
a small
blue
box.
In it,
was the world.

Dirt Road

 

Following the dirt road

Stretching down the ridge,

The road to town,

The road home,

Shuffle and kick gravel

Jump the ditch when the old Ford comes

There's only room for one

Berries wear a thick coat of car dust

Poison-oak shines its luster by the tall fence

Waiting to be brushed

Oily nettles with a lazy sting

Thrushes in the bushes wait like dingy ornaments

Decorating thorny arms and limbs for an ash holiday

Fox tails push apart with a slow reel

Nearing the road, neighbor-dogs greet and growl

But periwinkle still tastes sweet

'Hot for walking

It is Saturday, the tin mail box is empty

Laughing Orchard

 

Apple blossoms rent the stick rows on the rolling green

Horseradish and mustard carpet the floor in shell and saffron

I see only boughs of warm snow, a blizzard, and I am laughing

The flower-breath, like slumber kisses, mouths my senses

My cheeks blush at the petal caresses, imbibing the vapor liquor

There is too much pleasure, and two girls alone, we run

Falling in the high grass we make our sofas under the marriage bough

And we talk our flower cares, loving the twilight, planets, everything

Laughing and speaking in rose water, we are melting into our Some days

Landscape

The professor is in the field with his spade painting the hillside in tomato, pea, cabbage, and melon. Cigarette ash falls to the ground at his boots as he stands, planning his palette in solitary conference. Mental rows configure and converge on the brown tilled canvas. There is contentment in his work. He congratulates himself with another drag of blue smoke, and cats gesture approvingly nearby.

Naked Before The Sun

Naked before the sun
their mammals
bounce and buoy
brushing by in the tall grass
calloused feet pondering
hot dirt clods
hips swinging intimate
with the sun and air
no longer squatting
mothering strawberry rows
the men and women lounge
full and sweaty around
the fast-running hose
rising chilled and light
to the dance of sunflowers.

Summer Song

Sweet in the night, soft through sticky air comes the song of the insects the song of earthworms nuzzling the mother's chocolate skin for nutrients, the song of the bat piercing the late white, invisible blurs trafficking the world above the water where satisfied bass swim, stomachs full of dragonfly and waterskeeter, whose larva waits, and waits singing a silent song against the bloated calls of the giant bull frog, the barking dog, the taunting jay, who are nothing on such a night.