Late November

I hear the final blossoms forging their yellow music —
grace notes swinging through polluted air. Here,
planes chirr all afternoon. A door still rings

on its hinges. Down the sun-worn streets
sirens shout through every chance
I have to dream. Let us approximate

rural silence: the bridge outside my hometown,
slicked with first snow — its architecture
a makeshift roof over stubborn shoots of clover.

Before nightfall, I would watch the breath of goats
glaze a weakening light. Sleep beginning
as wheat undulates across the plains, toward

tractor tires abandoned in some farmyard, the tread loosened
to dust. Do not mistake this for pleasure. This is where
I build an immovable image, cold silos the only compass toward home.

Darcy Shargo
Copyright © 2001

Darcy Shargo is a graduate student in Goddard College's MFA in Writing program. Her poems have been published in Folio, The Madison Review, Phoebe, Poet Lore, and Traffic East.

Contents            Next Poem           Guidelines