Ark in the Field

One morning you open

one eye and listing to the south

it bulks like a barn,

noiseless, derelict

planks horizontal and deeply grooved.

A rudder the size of your front door

pivots as you push. Once

inside you can smell

the fear of every winged,

creeping and four-legged thing:

no water, no straw,

just shadow and bare wood.

Where is the one promised

to wake beside you forever?

Ox-eyed daisies, goldenrod, clover—

why are you breathing

among them, why don’t you gather

the outcast beasts or become one…