Tall Bluestem
       

A clock in a knot on the bridge
softened by rain— there's no time

to sit in bluestem,
eyes closed. The seeds pop

popping... grass, growing.
Underneath, roots hum.

Only a fraction of tall grass prairie
remains. On the hill, old school horse Huey's

upside-down skeleton, his rib cage a bowl
of sky. That summer you dug thistles

from the root, your bare arms burned,
and you thought, how beautiful,

the back of the black pickup filled
with fuchsia. Again

and again, that violence.
The rest of the prairie waits

for you to notice, smolders
under your skin at night.

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Copyright © 2022 Genevieve Williams All rights reserved
from Mid-American Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission