In Kansas

spring flows all around us or ought to
each field of corn is taut
with its arrows and bows
our hands can't contain
all the good gifts
of appetite and war

I keep counting the day
that shakes the calendar
It is me between you
making eager X's

We subsisted on shucks
and gathered in the sheaves
to the animal earth
living outside the retina
like a secret

Blind as corn and armed
to the eyes
Stethoscopes hang from every ear
Everyone wants
the combination

The road accelerates
below us, a country
of plumblines
the only curve the
telegraph swell

In all this flatness we
try anyway
learning to jump
as best we can




(1974)