My daughter and I take a walk down the dirt road.
Someone dumped his junk in the sumac:
a brown couch, dull tv. I tell her a family of trolls
spent the night here. I tell her stories
she’s too young to understand, but my voice
woos her and she coos. On walks alone
I never felt this way — I’d curse the bastards
who trash the fields. But now, we name
the weeds as we go: chinese lantern,
cornflower, queen-anne’s-lace. The cows
low as we pass, my daughter smiles. Grackles
flash from the grass, a torrent of wings
rising. They are angels I tell her, each
a thought, a whisper. At the end of our road
the dirt meets asphalt. Today it’s a silver ribbon
in the sun; it leads somewhere, I tell her,
beyond the hills, a city full of laughter.