Delaware has a part
of cornfields and small ponds and towering trees,
and people don't see it
and people deny it.

But the sufficient Autumn airs and
broken summer starlight
invites 4th grade me for a stroll.
To old banks of muddy palisades
to patches of moss and turtle shells.
Overturned boulder's and empty cracked roads
kindly instructed and nudged a boy onto a bike
onto dirt backpaths,
complex limabean farms,
crop-dust and those delicate farmer's planes circling,
nurturing grain.

Ticks, black beetles and mosquito bites
and a striped red snake
we spotted once
under the brick scared you, Brother, to death,
me too.