The grass in Indiana
grows pale and tall, like
a crowd of gangly children
conforming to the storm.
The wooden slats of houses, sheds, and
porches breathe. Their backs arch
outward together in delicate
and heaving rhythm, with the weight
of ghost stories.
This is the promiseland, where people
can return their fingers
to the dirt, where the oven sits
silently like a womb in the house.
My family and I try to sing ourselves
across the Midwest.
When there is lightning
in Indiana, the wide arms of cornfields
are spread still, caught in a millisecond
of light, in worship.
I want to write a story
about prophecy and good soil.
I want to transform us into
something gentler, a tumbleweed
kissing soft noise into the soil—
a whisper where there would have been
the snap of a gunshot
against blue sky.
