I-40 W / 12:00 P.M.
sydney vance
The mountains cannot shake me, but the plains
know how. Some yellow field in yellow country
reflected in my mosaic eye under the dark of the sky,
true weather that yields fervor & thunder,
12
the rain & the dance, the weight of the wheat
in the swagger of our wind—it opens me.
It sways me to the feeling that I will not allow me
to be left again as it steals this headache from my mouth
& hardens some unnecessary softness within me,
within us, & grows. The mountains do not faze me,
but the plains have thrown me down onto kneecaps
onto gravel, ripped into skin through strings, dead weight,