In the brackish flatlands of Southern Delaware
Trees, confined to strands, seem, in these low skies, closer to heaven,
Sprouts of reed, their tweed billowing, humming like ducks,
Sway in ripped tributaries
That give way to the crotchety silks of corn
Pinned down more orderly than on a quilt,
The blackened grass fields
Moving like fur,
The fallow land bearded with sand and huge red asparagus,
And the gothic farmhouses, humble before nature,
With rust-red tin roofs and long sagging windows,
Tractors left to burn to a crisp in the fields.
It's an idyll built from poultry.
Even the tree roots look like chicken bones.
Even the crabs only enter traps
When there's chicken in the bait box.
Thrown back, they keep coming back in for the meat,
As if seeking their perfection, in succulence
Until they are picked for use
After steeping like tea, gaining verve and fecundity,
Becoming holy only when consumed.
The wildflowers turn blue in the late afternoon.
The changing arts of nature
Make all declaration false,
As the mist obscures all distance.
I construct fables to make sense
Of this constancy of small town
Continually merging and being revised.
I order my fantasy
Too falsely — I imagine there's only
One Pitchkettle Road, one Girdletree Street,
One Pinchpenny Co-Op, one Peacock Motor Inn,
One Confetti Cafe, one Dreamland Motor Homes,
One Ophelia's Hats and Wigs, one Viola Palmist Advisor,
One Willie T. Brickhouse American Legion Post #400,
One Skipper's Grille, one Closet City, one Sand-Witch, one Hocker's IGA,
One Mutzie's, one Beauty Barn, one Manlove Construction,
One Bluewater Trading Company Gas Lace Peanuts Cigarettes Shrimp Hams Bacon
Fireworks Pottery Decoys Beer Used Furniture and Lotto sold here,
One Poor Lil' Boys and Girls Antiques, one Vibe Shop,
One Washtub Laundromat, one Mappsville Tourist Information and Industrial Park,
One Class Act Tax Service, one Dari Treat,
One Tru Blu Gas, one Dagsboro Cinema, one Vic's Country Store
To serve for all the others.
The true town is the false one, the synthesis
Where roadside schemes and thoughtless pit stops
Are edited from the image.
This created, greater place creates
A greater human, who is still somehow less
Than the lesser human, not allowed to be real,
He can't cling to the all-too-easily proffered substance,
The sweet unguent distillation,
The ambrosia borne by seeds.
And then it's night, pitch black
Except for the pale, heroic light
In chicken house windows
And the jeweled holes
Of Orion's belt —
My eyes dip into this light
And I am swimming in a great river —
Everything is being viewed through me.
