On white walls washed primrose,
candy wrapper leaves crinkle
behind the cloying shadow sweets
left by a breeze almost too quiet to remember.



Look past the prairie,
now smoldering cornfield wastes
of salted soil sewn from our own brows;
the only prerequisite is wide-eyed naïvety
to catch a glimpse
of the shaky-handed painter's brushstroke of trees
on a river aptly named "Skunk.

In the space between closer to and closer than home,
cicada songs join an aspen’s fluttering percussion
to usher in the twilight
while flipping the switch
on a childish soapbox.



On white walls washed indigo,
the final murmur of a hair-raising breeze
ties and pulls the puppeteer's strings on spindly trees
in a dying evening’s darkening dance.