Things Back Home

Barbed wire,

rusty thorns of the prairie rose,

stretching between fence posts that lean against the horizon,

pitstops for tumbleweeds on their journey down an endless dusty road.

Telephone poles tilting in the direction of a wind that blows devils of topsoil dancing through the field.

A railroad boxcar,

repurposed as a shed,

no longer sitting on iron rails but on tracks left by coyotes.

And the lone oak tree that held the swing reaching underneath the driveway.

Its roots breaking the concrete for a sapling to sprout through chunks where his truck once parked.

A blue sofa,

deposited by the last tornado,

sitting by the empty water tank where a bobcat has made his home.

A jack rabbit leaping from a patch of tall grass, scattering white dust that blankets

the countryside downwind of the cotton gin, like a layer of dry snow, covering the blood in the soil.

A storm,

from clouds the color of bruises,

gathering over the setting sun, drops hail the size of golf balls.

Lightning cracks the sky, striking the water tower before thunder echoes through the canyon.

Rain that everyone prays for falls in short bursts before the barn is collapsed by high wind.