Oklahoma

The winding roads swing with

blackjacks, their fall cobalt skies
burdened with the weight of barn swallows.

Climbing the hills outside city limits,
old farmers toss hay up to the rafters,
a spit for each bale, wiping their foreheads
and stuffing antique bottles in their pockets.  

If you’re from California you search for Redwoods
among the cedar trees sappy and running
on this autumn day, the breeze knotting
your hair, a buffalo stares from every grassland. 

Beyond a hedgerow of Bois d'arcs,
knee deep in blackberries, devilish scissortails
and evergreens, a tractor shuts its cab down,
curls up for a sun bath.  

I know that—I want to tip over my engine,
let crickets eat a hole in my threshing drum
become a useless object in the underbrush
buzzing with conundrums, drifting with pollen  

put my arm around some little old woman,
braid her hair as cars drive by like safaris,
like I’ve dreamed of safaris and jumping on the back
of a blue wildebeest. But I keep driving rolling the windows
down, cupping the sunset, tips of windmills.