Flowers of the Fields
        —for Adam & Ada

Furthermore, I wish I could shave but once
near a dogwood, swim the Mississippi up close
& personal then bury my body in a pact

with the devil, come anew as the fallen limb
floating past the bridge. In the car wheeling east
someone said a brilliant word, its rotation

lost between the lit splendor of these hills
& plains. Always the anger of hardheaded men
but that billboard's our rearview, yesterday

if we're lucky. We're lucky, upshift toward
miles of reverie & for the span of a pasture
I back into the boyish arms of the Willamette,

river I call home, call breathless, even call
deep & curled as though by her kiss. In Subiaco
we kill the engine for the fabled poet's grave,

search until we find the stone named Francis
(whispering Frank) & refuse to let his life
spark voiceless into the earth. Our country

over half these dozen days begins to shrink,
every step swung &, stage left, the understudy
trills & hums from the mailbox to a door

that yawns & lets the morning in. This spins
like vinyl, lowers the needle into its Big River,
its Old Blue, flips that record until a voice

emboldens our own. When I insist to speak
I implore the air, wager the home on my shoulder
that I might never lose this music for the single,

wide-open gaze when at last the fluent water
greets the sea. When I insist on meaning,
this one lives inside a riverbank, this one strokes

ever farther from its shore. I wish I didn't even
bear remorse, wave goodbye to the weather
& each flood where it leaves the body's mouth.

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Copyright © 2021 Michael Robins All rights reserved
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