The sight unhinges him for a moment

as he tries to unsee his hometown,

the cornfields where

the gods have disappeared.

The afternoon light

is earnest as sun-dried dung

on the fields of October

when the farmhands rig the tractors,

streamline the land. He feels the flap

of wind, the breath of a lost song:

dream us clean of the land, dream us free.

He was there. He was. He knew

that place propped up

like a caricature on the glossy

surface of a postcard.