They took their father’s tractor, the boys,
one much older, the other, a child with teeth
still crooked, coming in. The swallows landed
on the older boy’s hands. He tied them together
last night while the woman in the bathroom drank
the old man’s entire cabinet, even the mixers, then
played Stormy Monday on the man’s vinyl, which,
once the boys scratched so the man hit them “two
ways to Wednesday” until the light in the kitchen
window went purple. Such beautiful ways to see
one view. It was October so the white was high
in its cotton home. Once a shed, the lean-to piled
with bones, tools rusted over and the tractor, glinting
in the slats, growling, rolled. The older boy willed
spikes in the old man’s shins. All spikes, to irrigate
anger. When the tractor got to the main road, release, then
laughter, as if a snow-cone stand appeared suddenly, cows
stalled as the boys danced, first two tires, then four, then
crying as it left the earth, punching each other into soil.

cover art

Truth

Untruth

We Don't Know and TheyWon't Tell Us

We Don't Know and They
Won't Tell Us