Coming Home: Tanglefoot Lane

The farm on Tanglefoot is abandoned

and no longer adds up

to what it is.

The lower branches are missing

from the windbreak.

A dish towel rots on the line.

What sunlight there is fingers through

the outbuildings but their shadows

never quite reach the ground.

The farmer could come back to this place,

walk into the house, look up through the rafters,

up past what is left of the roof, and hunger

for the feel of something heavy

in his hand like a hammer.

But there is too much light inside.

He cannot come back.

Not if his shadow

doesn't work anymore,

not if the roof caves in

and weeds grow up through the dry heart

of the furnace.

Not if the dark and heavy things

of his life, like rain, look for low places

in the ground.