Nights like these I’m like a bluegrass song,

rolling twang that threatens to break apart, held

only by the fiddle, whose long stitch weaves

a low hill under a high moon, slouching even as it reaches

up toward the heavens.

 

It’s been said these songs can only look backwards

with voices that close around the heart-in-the-throat,

a lump stuck in sad pulse, each beat bracing

for the sweet red of homegrown tomatoes

but finding only dusty fields.

 

Tonight, under the weight of a cold stove and closed doors,

I call forth the once-was, the might-have, the what-could-have-been.

I gaze out the window, yearning to yawn forward and tumble toward

a road that winds a wheel within a wheel,

cleaving mud and gravel and bone and time,

spinning always homeward.

Photo by moominsean