The tiny, spotless house:
a solid though worn white shell.

Arms of the raccoon eyed farmer:
thick stems ending in brown spore-pocked fingers.

The enduring matriarch:
moon phases calculated out for three thousand years.

The face of their universal toddlers:
roused walnuts not yet shattered.

The plow courses the soil:
tidal rip in gray, stony sea.

Harvest is drawn from the work:
embraces that cut and sting their skins.

This living happens
one dawn to dark run at a time.

How it has always happened:
one dawn to dark run at a time.

The woman
you prize

a former target
from a shooting game
at the state fair

sets her head to bobbing
quickly up and down
back and forth
whenever you look
directly at her
these days

As soon as you’re awake
you run from her

to flit from place to place
fuming and sputtering

Upon arrival at each
begin to fret
that you should have stayed
wherever you just were

Back home
your dogs
sit near the door
their noses flicking and flaring
waiting for you

They hide
when you turn the knob
to come in

but a few minutes
after seeing to
your unloaded menace
everyone licks your face

even the woman who ducked you this morning

As soon as you’re not alone
you break into a full
wetface aria

“Who am I that they can love me
all of them knowing
I’m the gun
and the bomb
and the kicker”

They tell you to wait till you are alone
to pity yourself
because

you also cannot sing