Alone in the baseball field back of the farrier’s barn,
I think of the wives in cotton dresses the color
of oil soap, their husbands kneading
the counter down the hill at the Rusty Sprocket.
In one yellow yard, a pool of rainwater
has gathered at the center of an abandoned mattress
where someone's weight lulled the springs.
The grocery store begins to glow like a fish tank
after dark. The sawmill workers buy strawberry pop
to sweeten their whiskey, sometimes stand awhile
in the parking lot and watch the lumber trucks pull
through the slow air on their way
to Roseburg.
Downtown, there is a junkyard
fragrant with wild roses. A boy and a girl
have fallen asleep in a dry bathtub,
and are both dreaming of the white moon.
