A gray board-&-batten shack in Owyhee
sagebrush in a drizzle no one’s in-
side hasn’t been for years two
empty windows barbed
wire fence strung on weathered splits lining the
ridge southward
What’s anyone else about
at this moment or at this moment
a tanker truck downshifting up an eastbound grade three
Harleys churning a mist on US 95
a stone gray sky
anyone in California anywhere
under a lemon sun or
Pittsburgh under a lemon sun or Bozeman
where I don't know anyone
under a lemon sun there was always a lemon
sun when I tried to look there are
two empty windows framed by gray
boards
a power pole with no wires connecting it
elsewhere the desert
dripping astringent green in this damp May
slate gray sky awash in crows
Jack Hayes
© 2010
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