I am watching a green, green Kansas wheatfield
where the sea is endless and warm
Snaking waves travelling the length of it,
farther than I care to walk forever.
So I let the waves carry me.
So soft and so steady on down the fields.
Smooth and fast
like a silent green motorcycle
assembled from light and hope.
carrying me away from the place where the puppies were buried
and the icy ground cradled their little bodies
until the giant uncaring plows came,
and blindly tumbled them back onto the surface
and their mother, in her sad animal confusion, tried to eat them
how I screamed as I tried to stop her
and my brother hid his face
I see the stalks hissing by in synchronized formations,
bending
and bending
and again bending
all day.
as if it is their job
their function
their mission
to wave goodbye to the green
and forget
until I want to take up waving my hands
as a hobby.
Summer hummed and glowed in the night air
we could feel it singing in our hair and on our skin
we would lie on the boxcar and stare up
into the brown night sky,
lit by the all-night flourescents
and the vagaries of refinery fires
Unbidden, you told me lies about your childhood.
spinning out pasts where your father traveled
or died or ran off.
Never about the how
or the hurt
every lie bigger than the last.
every time the truth was less
like peeling an onion
each tender skin more fresh and new
In each lie you were reborn innocent
As we climbed the hills
I took your hand
something passing between us
and I was left staring at the lighter
in my open hand
We stood on the hills above and watched
as the trains burned
the fire took each car in succession
each flaring up more fiercely than the last.
From a distance, we felt the radiance on our faces,
on our arms and legs,
In our eyes
and in our minds
we were children
and destroyers