All week the rain holds off. We sweat
stuffing the barn full, like a pillow,
as much as it will hold of these
strangely dead, yellow cubes we set
in unchinked rows, so air can move between.
The smell collects, elusive, sweet,
of gray nights flecked with the snake tongue
of heat lightning, when the grownups sat
late on the side porch talking politics,
foreclosures, war, and Roosevelt.
Loneliness fills me like a pitcher.
The old deaths dribble out. My father clucks
his tongue, disapproving of manual labor.
I swivel to catch his eye, he ducks
behind the tractor, his gray fedora
melts into this year's colt munching grain.
Meanwhile, a new life kicks in the mare.
Meanwhile, the poised sky opens on rain.
The time on either side of now stands fast
glinting like jagged window glass.
There are limits, my God, what I can heft
in this heat! Clearly, the Great Rat waits,
who comes all winter to gnaw on iron
or wood, and tears the last flesh from the bone.