The land could never rest
beside the unforgiving sky;
nor could its stalks of muted
unbrushed grin-beige wheat and swollen dandelions
be trimmed to austere corners
and left to parch.

Sanded throats and whitened
fists and steel
ribs cannot be boxed from
a country thatched under fringed
edges and burgundy tongues,

Even when the
unwavering truths are stamped a watery
default to a sky
of half price cloth.

And though the
wall-less rooms were
ensconced,
solidified under that square of
yellow,

Six more years there were mornings
and nights and then
the pinch of
maybe--