Across the ragged field
green at ground level
but with distance
running a color of wheat
to the forest
wall—here barn fragments
and bones of long-gone farmers
scatter across
last year’s planting.
The fence line
remembers its cattle
and angled rocks
their broken plows.
Timbering.
Trash
along a crease of fallen leaves
near columns
planked
needing paint.
I need paint.
I’m clapboard, plastic panes and
gray lumber flapping.
I lean, I teeter, I dissipate
shack-torn by easy raining
a bare hardwood edge
disheveled beside the parcel
that’s now a faded
yardish
patch.
Other wings
lose no departure
in beautiful
ruin.
My stay dulls
into a later
leaving.