No Country, All Country

If you’re tall enough to reach the sill you can climb out of that window at night

your mother will listen from her bed in the kitchen as you catch frogs in the black yard

facilitating that first sign of adolescent rebellion by the glowing oven

that only source of heat. 

When you drop down from that ledge you can feel that wet beneath your feet

that tire iron in your spine as it twists against that soft muscle

where do the frogs go when you go to sleep?

they share a quilt with your mother.

You’re not fast enough to see the world when it paints itself purple 

in that embrace of the moon

in those seconds before darkness

before cold.

If you’re calm enough to the ones around you won't scare the cows into the electric fence 

with their big bodies and fragile hearts

the sound of crickets keep them awake

but the sound of screams do not.

A truck in the road. It’s stuck in the mud. And the bones in the bed are not yours. But mine

Is that a copperhead in the grass?