Say
\nin every drought-outed sky you see Kansas.
\nYou see a bowl of dust<\/p>\n
nested in your grandmother\u2019s hair. Missouri
\nRiver banks pulling back<\/p>\n
to smile. Say the hazed field is up to its neck
\nwith dry seed,<\/p>\n
that between this city and the next all
\nthe abandoned homesteads<\/p>\n
look like tenantless bodies, an estate gone
\nbelly up. Still,<\/p>\n
say there is beauty to be found here, honest
\nmen willing to undo<\/p>\n
every good thing
\njust to prove they can live without happiness.<\/p>\n
Say the farmer\u2019s widow,
\nwhose money is useless, knows something<\/p>\n
about salvation
\nyou don\u2019t. Say the teenage girl<\/p>\n
pushed into the woods wanted to be there,
\nthat when her face<\/p>\n
was pressed into the dirt
\nshe smelled the history of rain. Say<\/p>\n
each fiery oak
\nwould look majestic in someone\u2019s yard,<\/p>\n
but in the forest it is just another tree. Say
\nthe girl hid in the ditch<\/p>\n
when the headlights fogged over the hill,
\nan alarm of red brakes<\/p>\n
beating in her veins. Say the country is not
\nas wild and clean<\/p>\n
as people think, weeds and garbage bellied
\nagainst the hand-<\/p>\n
hammered fence. Say when the sun rises
\nthe crows will zero down<\/p>\n
to count every half blessing
\nand the Copperheads will abandon wrist-thin<\/p>\n
snake holes\u2014 there
\non a roadkill road where what doesn\u2019t<\/p>\n
limp away
\ndies by the side. Say there will always be<\/p>\n
bigger secrets
\nhidden beneath smaller secrets. Say the girl<\/p>\n