Upturned birch boughs concede the ridge’s
blast, their bent tips dipped in thinning light:
ochre, the fading highway; cobalt, the bridges
twinning the Mulberry river. The span on the right
eases into dereliction as the cranes
nod left. Hayrolls mark the border
of a disused field, its machinery arranged
to rust. Shaped angles of the gleaming pickup, ordered
when the land sale check cleared,
seem out of place here, where place remains for now.
For the next vale, one could draw a knifeblade
through burnt sienna, imagining how
the wrist’s tattoo suggests a stand of woods;
a downward scrape, a house’s start. One could.
-William Kupinse
Copyright © 2003 The Cimarron Review