Storm in the Briar Patch

In obedience and ignorance, okra

stalks, gaunt as prisoners, stand

where screens only keep the flies in.

Dry season and the boy's father

slaps him for no reason it seems-

rutted landscape fallen to ruin,

polk weed veined like a hand

where the scraps of laundry hang

out, flap like the wrung-necked

chicken in its arcs. Storm

seems a long time coming and strong

when it dooms down. Spark

crack connects the sky and land

with copper-green scar in the eye,

as the cat trembles, the three fish

wait to be cleaned. The lean-tos

lean into the wind, lean as bean-

poles, the beans dangling, jangled

like wind chimes, as farmers damn

the hail as it holes tobacco: broad

as banana leaves, like small roofs but

pierced now, a punctured infantry

as he goes the rounds of his fields, each

hill shredded, a mimic-man, a sham of

what life might be: ghost of a crop to go

up from a match in cloud and

gesture, not shiver here, broken, long

hours of raising ruined in his eyes.