dead wells and abandoned houses, mud bottomed lakes, the flatland dreaming, all corn stubble and rain, starless as a cave, and the ancient names of places.

ragweed and onion, tangles of briar, funerary mirrors of chrome and steel,

secret conduit of highway like a glyph of black asphalt and sulpher light, runic intersections on the toll roads, hitchhiking ghost

roofless houses swallowing storms in the dark, cryptic wood and hedgerow, the turning wheel of seasons on the fallow fields, rusting hayrakes, collapsing barn

here a holocaust of roadkill. here a congregation of eyes
here the wood and the field, the black road, the black car
© Jacob Rakovan