Ma is in the kitchen, pouring oil into a red-hot pan
creating a small explosion. Beside her left hand
were knives of different sizes: the slimmest for the tomatoes and lettuce

At dawn an effervescence circles the lily-padded pond,
pricking the backs of frogs that leap, mewling, into the spittle-starred black.
Dust. Sunlight. Ten striped miles edge by
and a hundred little beasts have died since daybreak between the zebra trees.

Your town was all haze and cow-plow. No cartoons
could break the static, and only skaters in empty silos
held any conversation.

Out of the blue ferns, a pale half-face
turns to grasp the lid of the horizon.
Warmth wetting clay, the man
quits braying from a gash at the throat.

Growing up in a small Missouri town there were three things to do: go hiking, speculate
about the weather, and eat at Chili’s. Every now and then we’d have a tornado too, but those
three were the main activities in my small town. Chili’s particularly was my favorite.