Sunken Zinc

It started early in the morning,
when the whip-poor-wills 
whistled for love and
strawberries shed their tiny hairs.

It was the time of year when
mud daubers went in search of 
soft dirt and cucumbers unfurled
their curious vines.

Frogs sprang with song from the creek
and cows looked past fence lines for
any sign of their kidnapped calves.

The bull was ripping
grass from dewy ground while trees
sorted wind with their leaves
and the skin of a red onion
floated like a petal to the patio.

Wherever possible, weeds filled cracks
with stubborn roots and buntings spiced
sunlight with their riddles.

A jet thronged with speed in the heavens and
a phoebe sung its name like a jingle while
farmers began rounds in unlicensed trucks.

News trickled like a leak from the speaker
while a skunk settled into its hole behind the house
and kitschy windmills erupted with each gust.

As fresh clouds unrolled their thick gray tarp
a cowbird squeaked like quartz in a vise
and Mr Coffee gurgled like a gremlin.

A hawk screamed its mind from the sky
and a column of ants swarmed a beatle like photons.
The forecast called for a storm or two and the
mousetrap offered cheese with a catch.

Ticks waited for flesh to pass through the brush
and vultures sat like statues on the dormers 
while lizards crawled like children over rocks.

Tall grass blushed at the stroke of an unseen hand
and the cardinal sang, “It’s weird, it’s weird, it’s weird.”
As rain began to fall on the fields, grasshoppers hushed
their summer ceremony and a fly skittered across this page.

The cuckoo knocked its dull chime from a hidden branch
and yarrow held tight in clusters of white and yellow
while a spider sped between drops on its octagon of legs.

Mullein welcomed the rain into its fat rosette 
of velvety leaves and thunder arrived like
something heavy falling down a hillside.

Raindrops hit the windows, washing them of their dust
and lightning lit up the darkened land like an x-ray 
as the ghosts of prospects past
plumbed the valley for veins of sunken zinc.