Slip
out past her fence line through a field
of tumbleweeds and foxtails,
where an oil pump bowed mindlessly
through the late summer heat?
But grief is a drug, a hunger
that makes you gaze out at the world
hoping to see more than you know,
like staring at old photographs
of her and asking meaning to appear
as suddenly as a kit fox in the field,
something quick-small, the color of dry grass,
that you hadn’t noticed. And somehow
the world confirms your need,
but you’re too old to believe this now,
because all the world gives today
are the oil pump’s gears chewing
through the brutal Bakersfield heat,
which is enough to make you strip bare
then slip into the pool’s cool throat,
eyes closed as you slide just under
the surface, hoping to be swallowed whole.