Thunder booms in the west and all the sailing clouds come home. Drops of rain fall, big as walnuts. Ghosts of drowned deckhands talk about coal and jinxed towboats, then lie back, quiet, exhausted in their castles of catfish. Off to the south, a feather of smoke. An Illini girl burns her wedding dress.
Twilight comes, slime-green and eerie.
Now the air is soft, belly smooth. The boy who moves out of the lamplight has a guitar as big as God. If he plunks just one taut string, I will explode a thousand images. Our friends from the city watch the birds and rabbits feeding together on top of the deep, white snow. Someone was always leaving and never coming back.