An offer. Cheap navy
pants. His pitiful anger. 
Small awning with no 
message. Dirty the mirror. 
Say it again: wheat-colored. 
Her wheat-colored hair
on his Appalachian 
neck. Sunlight fatigue. 
The pellets we accepted. 
A dense elixir. Tractor 
trailers carrying horses 
to semination rituals. 
This bell, he said, goes
inside the mare. 
When I let the baby
escape into the wheat. 
Belts left out to darken. 
Artificial pine, dog 
smell, an Easter rabbit 
cooked in salt and merlot. 
Hospital beds drifting 
single file down the river.
A snake’s last tremble. 
She perfected that shuffle. 
To the townspeople:
recovery is only awful. 
The oil on your sister’s
eyelid. It was a great day 
for business. What
the nurse still wonders.
A letter written quickly. 
Dear child. Is that my money.