Playing Dead in the Field

Hay season and the men lean

against the split-rail fence.

Even the oiled tongues of their boots

speak Finnish. The evening ridge

is a blue crown of deep hours.

 

For now, I belong to the quick mice,

and the wind is a smoky mirror

lowered onto the field.

 

A snake noses the low star

through the grass. In the sky,

five ticks filled with my blood

pulse between a man and his burden.

The Morning Crumbles Like Shale

and yesterday’s thorn of starlight

is still caught in my mother’s hair.