Leave the Crows Out of It

Half-past morn, the town is on fire.

Sunlight had sloughed its way through

Greentree Apartment Homes, past the sickly

porch lights, the water tower tending attention.

This is my town, my DNA on the eaves,

my flock of goats heckling the fence on 64th,

and him, having known no hills, no 7-Eleven

to mind, claims the town despite the blackberry

reaped from me. My babe-barbed heart.

In the aureus hours of desire, the sky unbuttons

its jeans. We linger into the Eden, the plow

ever so handsome, plow and heave, plow

and heave, the gawk and hum. Slow

like that. Nobody has ever truly risen

the way my town has, vernal and terribly

livid—bluing air, the blue trust of Priuses,

blue Grocery Outlet inside me.

Arch your back, says the town. I do.