In the Sticks

everything forks and branches you can’t get there from here

unless you go sideways first like a knight in chess

or a long-tailed weasel hunting in the stiltgrass

you must run out of luck or lumber

get saved by a discount preacher behind the barbecue shack

lose an argument with the moss

wonder what horrors lie hidden beneath your feet

wrapped in duct tape sealed in mason jars

but you learn the new bump and grind

of mountaintop draglines or fracking rigs

the way a chainsaw mutters between screams

how the creek can rise from a lullaby to a roar

and wash away all our post-industrial middens

how there’s a rambling rose that blooms every june

in the small of the back of beyond