I can plow the mile-long grooves of this season
with a boot-knife plucked from a scarecrow's back.

Ten birds punctuate a wire. I drag my instrument
in furrows  – I am pulling the field's lines

toward me, toward ten perches, ten not-you's.
The dirt is fat with rain, heavy and black,

moist root-bits and manure. If you opened
your mouth in this season, a blue jay might wrestle

itself loose. There's no end to these hard digs.
And the mock-passenger, screwed to a post,

the stitch-smiled dummy with your lips, says:
Hang up, October. Hang up, birds. Hang up, you.

Robert Campbell

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