breathes over salt grass
and meadow plants,
a mother hiding music
from her children.
 
Fields of erect
and luscious stalks,
the numb bodies
of braided trees.
 
Grass overlaid
by mahogany apples that fell
to feed seeds to the soil and die.
 
Steam and ash tremble
from canyons like burning hands
and entryways to nightmares.
 
Trains fly up from the pits like graffiti,
crooks leaping up from the earths crust
delivering mad people to worn homes,
houses caught by the river.
 
There are no seasons.
Never three people
in one place.
 
Draughts pour in
with the stench of fruit
sap and yeast.
 
Tides fall from the sky --
the rivers grown children,
aching, calling for the arms
of their mother.
 
Black River, lush,
its hairs now gray --
 
the fish are its cane.
The cane is breaking.