All stills in the crush of swollen air.
Tendrils and leaves pull green secrets
into themselves. Things have found
the lowest places and rest there waiting still.
The storm drain knows, thatch-choked
by clipped brown grass.
All along this baked tar road
heat-blown tires lie in strips
as colorful and layered
as the plumes of carstruck pheasants.
Odors of fish meal hang close to the corn
where the shade-enfeebled sun
slowly turns the mud there to dust.
Nothing knows what it is, only what it was
before the last storm came.
And now--