no vetch around for seasons, the pinked majority
      of the feather reed, buffed and white-tipped, capped

the road’s rim while droves of cows
    roamed grim through long since-yellowed stalks

      stiff from months of no feed, nothing to yield
but silks sutured to rot, pale threads

I enlisted your braiding and dank fodder we’d
      have smelled had the weather permitted.

O sweet Louise, do sing to me

of one burning branch in some wild brush
     flapping its carmine leaves.

O holy roller, come roll on me

and one hundred thirteen red-winged blackbirds I counted
         before giving up, squat atop barbed wire fence posts

and probably somewhere wild
      hens croaked for their clutches in thicket.

   I am but a yearling at the bosom of spring

     I’d have crooned before the thickest month
              your mouth curved right off the edge of your jaw.