And then your Buick jumps
across the rails as straight
as sonar at a mirror-glint:
there are long rat-tails that kerosene
has swatched across the sky
and a sound
like someone’s strangulation;

Spraddle-legging through thistle and dry
dissilient milkweed pods. The bunch grass boiling
up beneath his boots in humps, splaying
like surf along a shore. Cursing himself,
the mumping rifle balls, the slickleaved shade