Fridays I drive west on Quincy—
a fox avoiding its foxhole—
to the wheat fields, away from
someone else’s bed, the sweet
mildew of beer-rotting floors.
I lie on my back in the weeds,
itchy, cold, alone, and let only
the stalks graze me. Out here
the obtrusive city light is hushed
by the dark. I see meteors streak
the sky far more often than my
mother ever confessed they do,
and she never warned of the cry
a mountain lion makes when
it’s crouched low in the grasses
of southeastern Kansas, like
a baby left on a gravel road—
confused, hungry, beckoning.
