The Watch War
When the sun comes up
I speedwalk backwards
to a tall cover crop.
Sprint with my wife
through a life cycle of corn
just to slow time.
Order doctors to
cut out my mind’s
eighty-millisecond buffer
so now I see in pure azaleas
and dogwoods and
horses growing old
and breakable, sons
outgrowing gloves, meteors
flaming at random over
a weathered marbleyard
and an old man
sitting in the kitchen with
a gray dog at his feet
and bare wrists
and dawn streaking through,
daydreaming about
how long it takes
a fence post to split.
