SENTENCING

I was one piece in a funeral

a farmer told me the weather would break

his shirt was painted up and down

corn stalks

we were killing the bugs together

and the storm in his hair wouldn’t quit

my girl watched the Sunday songs

lift the singers in their better garments

alleluia all the ale house water

and we drank perspective

our shoreline down down

the baby inside each of us

squirm and squiggle (last chance, she

said) the voices gathered

a current in her stripped the sky

was wide for a glimpse and nervous.