The loads of wheat that stretch out after
tractors into town
into the day has fallen apart
on the highway I’m going to

another town and the sun has set
I’m going and won’t come back
In wheat in wagons of wheat wagons coming into town,
in another summer
come home. What did you live for here?
Why did you leave Pawnee Station three houses and come to town? Why did I love
your daughter—is the same old question
of family how my own how not
leave and leave and leave, the highways
falling apart as the sun goes down
Don’t come home till you’ve grown up. Come home in the wheat as thick
as my shaven hair
trying for that hold on to
a family

a town
a real
harvest, they’re driving tractor after
tractor into town, to the elevators
to the Saturday night

left open

Leave open
in far highways the sound
of the fall apart
in the ground where
you kick and kick and kick
and stomp the golden stubble into mud.

— 4 Dec 62

Originally published in White Wall Review 41 (2017)