The barn door swings open
with a heave of rusted chain,
padlock clanking on timber.

Step inside the barn
and the air is cooler.
Dust motes hang
in shafts of light.
High above you, witness tobacco sticks
tucked into the crossbeams like bones.

The tractor is dead.
But there is a baby doll
propped against the wall.
She has wisps of desiccated hair
and straight bangs that hang
over an empty eye socket.
Her bland face is spidered with cracks.
The ragged hole in her chest—
such an indelicate wound—
reveals a wire skeleton.
Her right hand, missing three fingers,
cannot smooth the tatters of her dress.
Her naked feet are ***** but
undiminished and intact.
She smiles, almost.

The doll watches you watching her.
A wasp lands on her one good eye.

You step toward her through slants of light,
dust settling on your shoulders and shoes.
The metal roof temporarily catches
the shadows of planes and birds and clouds.
As mice scurry beneath canvas drop cloths,
the barn door closes slowly behind you,
pushed by an unexpected breeze.

Many summers ago
you were married in this barn;
it rose up like a cathedral around you—
white candles and the smell of fresh straw,
relatives warm in their folding chairs,
a man playing acoustic guitar, golden rings.

The old baby you see is new,
detritus gathered alongside
dull hacksaws, scraps of lumber,
the mechanics of broken things.

It is time to turn around now.
It is time to walk into the meadow,
wearing your most beautiful dress.
It is time to notice the sun high in the sky,
to feel your heartache cooled as you buzz
between the shadows of tall flowers.

I am no artist, but
were I to sketch
the hydrangea dying
on the dining room table,
I would want to capture
how the room just brightened,
sunlight filling the windows,
illuminating the flowers
as they move without
moving even closer
to a final decomposing.

The work began with cedar, ash, and pine.
In cold months, the architecture rose
on Utah timber, the truest I could find.
Eventually, come spring, the windows shone.

The house stands abandoned now. In time,
the clapboard, screens, and porch decomposed
to a bleak mark—a wreck on the tree line.
So ruination brings the builder home.

The red metal box is packed with tools:
galvanized nails for the bedroom I dreamed in,
a trowel for the plaster my fists passed through,
a needle and thread for the curtains’ revision.

Open the unlocked door. At once a throng
of starlings scatters, bursts from the roof in song.

The woods begin where the backyard ends.
When my brother and I go to the woods,
we are not brothers anymore. We are kings.

Or explorers. Or astronauts. Or spies.

In the woods, we are anything we want to be.
In the woods, we forget about school.
We forget about homework.
We forget about time.

The path through the woods is narrow.
We walk single-file between the trees and brambles.
Later, we’ll pull the leaves from our hair and compare
the scratches on our arms, the places where are clothes have torn.

If we walk deeper into the woods,
across the train tracks, and turn around,
we can see the roof of our house above the treetops.

Below the train tracks, a shallow creek waits.
The rocks are tan and smooth; they skip across
the water like insects.
Mud comes in many forms; we know them all.

The weather in the woods is not like weather
anywhere else. When it rains in the woods,
we hear the drops falling before we feel them.
In the woods, sunshine is a treasure that dissolves in our hands.
Snow is a white map.

If you go with us into the woods, you have to be quiet.
You have to watch out for wolves.
And bandits.
And quicksand.

Sometimes it feels like we could stay in the woods forever.
Sometimes we race through the trees with our eyes half-closed,
daring the woods to contain us. And sometimes we hide
in the woods for hours, waiting for what we know will come:
the clang of a bell being rung from the back porch:
the sound of our mother calling us home.

Eating breakfast this morning,
cereal in hand, ready to pour,
I was amazed by what I saw:
a blue sky in my cereal bowl.

Put the cereal down, the sky seemed to say.
So I did.
I sat completely still and watched.
I reflected.
The sky, cupped by curved sides
of white porcelain, was very blue
and flat—a lake of blue milk.

All morning, my heart sounded
like a coin dropped into a well.
And me, waiting. Waiting
for the clink to tell me
my time had come.

Eventually, I picked up the spoon and ate.
This is what infinity tastes like.

My brother’s in the army;
my sister’s in Detroit.
Momma lost the lottery;
Daddy’s in the joint.

The abattoir is empty;
the kitchen smells like steak.
The cows are off in dreamland,
but the butcher is awake.

The dogs are in the garbage
snapping over bones.
The garden is a sinkhole
choking on its stones.

The furniture’s on fire;
my heart’s a trampoline.
Once a week I wash the floor
with blood and gasoline.

There’s liquor in the freezer
and a hatchet in the shed.
I always clean my fingernails
but forget to make the bed.

A seagull screeches overhead.
The wind plucks its white feathers,
one by one, scattering them
to the sea like a soft shipwreck,
until all that remains of the seagull
are its eyes:
black marbles thumbed
across a starless sky.