Country

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.