17, excerpt of Fall
A hedgeapple falling, the neighbor's radio,
a rusty squeaking roof vent, someone yelling You boys
stop that, cicadas, cars on the highway, sparrows
rustling in gutters, all these competing noises.
A swingset's rusty voice severed by a chainsaw,
one life nourished by the erotic, one poisoned.
Though latched shut and locked, the truck's draw-down trailer door
each time it takes a bump clatters and tries to rise.
Two screens between us gray the neighbor's white lace curtains,
but the sun makes pumpkin-colored soy fields brighter
now than our maple will be. Though it clings to green,
gold has found at branch's end one eight-leaf cluster.
The horizon approaches, those rising mountains,
and everything else grows narrow and more clear.
H.L. Hix
12:37 PM