God’s Country

God’s Country

There is a farm down

a dirt road eight miles

south of I-20. Rows of

dried up cotton are populated

by copperheads and mesquite trees.

Down a fork in the gravel

path sits a house with a fire

pit on its front porch. Dancing

under starlight, it spreads across

the pasture like an illness.

Engulfing hay bales and slithering

across telephone wire. Down secret

grottos where the cattle lie

and sleep and dream, grasshoppers’

antenna twitch in the smokey air.

It melts a wishing well full

of oozing quarters and nickels that never

once persuaded a wish to come true.

The rusted, tin roof cries

molten metal onto the South Plains.

A candle dripping hot wax

on prickly pears.

The fire scurries like a rodent

through the wood, it reeks

of burning cedar. The Moon

sits attentively in the blackened

sky, watching in silence as

if it were God.

Consuming broken stables in

which I would ride the old,

white horse before I had grown

too heavy. He would trot about

a pasture ripe with tornadoes

and dust storms, his ribs jutting

through paper skin.

Until one day Uncle Jimmy

went out and pet his neck, now

covered in flies, before smiling

gently and shooting him

in the head.

I never saw the body.

The skeleton resting out there

behind the thorn brush. An assumed

carcass picked clean by buzzards

and coyotes, grateful to have stumbled

upon a free meal.

I wonder if they pray for times

like this.

Dear God,

Please bless my family with your fruit,

so we may survive another winter.

Amen

They howl at the Moon.

Sitting faceless up there in

the night sky. Illuminating reaches

of the prairie even the fire

cannot understand. It turns away

from the countryside, drowning in flames

and moon smoke.

Vermin flea underground, stuffing

themselves into burrows so

tight their bones crack

and their lungs explode. Their eyes

an eclipse at totality.

The fire is relentless.

It scorches through cattle guards and chain

link fences, but stops for a moment

to admire a library of tombstones,

scattered with wilting

roses and bullet casings,

it reads their names like covers of books.

Including that of my father,

and his father,

and his.

Constellations grow

farther apart. There is no

siren in the distance. The coyote’s

howl fades in the background

slowly.

Dragonflies stand watch in

anticipation. Perched atop the tallest

headstone, a Civil War soldier

with a Confederate flag placed

intently at the base

of the crumbling monolith.

The plaques of others in separate

states of decay. Visited

by a loved one every so

often with flowers and prayers, but tonight

the cemetery is empty.

The only thing breathing is fire.