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Dusk
Behind our homes a road lies
it suffers like a patch of skin altered
by its rash, a scarred spine, years
of combined ruts. Aging fence lines
border the fields’ windswept grass.
Retired from factory work, my husband’s
the patron saint of roses and lawns.
Dusk and our farmer neighbor slows
his tractor, over its drone he talks/listens
(two hundred acres scream his name).
My husband leans on the bent gray fender.
For the second time in a week, he’s planted
tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, and beans.
Night’s surprise, a late May frost. They speak
about the lysis of hurts, how to quiet them.
After the sun’s full day, small words shake hands
a sign of peace, grit and grease fill every pore.
My husband’s heart stents (all four) red-eyed,
spent, never missing a shift inside wet tunnels.
Richard’s sixty cows bawling in stalls, beg to be milked.
Farming’s hell the men spit and laugh, but
what we hear’s the gossip of bees inside the hive
the hammer’s long sigh between nails.
More by Jeanne Bryner
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