leaned and creaked
under my shifting weight.
A cigarette dribbled its
smoke down my fingers,
swirling with chipped
red nail polish.
He stood in the yellowed yard,
white t-shirt clinging
and threadbare
in the humid August evening.
The hum of mosquitos made
harmony with his
drafty whistling.
Lifting,
muscles shaped like clay
beneath skin,
falling,
the quicksilver crack
of wood under the ax.
I applauded especially good
chops, the swinging of
the red-handled ax.
His hair falling
like sheafs of summer wheat.
Across the lane
a farmer made his daily walk
through the rows of tall-growing corn.
Snakes sizzled under his feet,
boot-clad and weathered.
A ragged bandana to wipe the
glisten from his brow.
He smelled rain on the earth,
a handful of soil in his palm
said tomorrow.
And the corn would grow taller-
maybe even seven dollars
come fall.
I flicked the spent end of
my cigarette into the dying grass.
A chicken came to peck at it.
its feather ruffled by the
hot breeze.
Swing
and fall.
Swing and fall.
The rhythm of his ax,
my strong man in the sun.
The farmer's hand lets loose
his soil.
Rain gathered on his lips
and into is throat.
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