Words that do not mean what you think they mean

cut grass but not your cut grass
cut grass and creosote rising from deep
within fence post after fence post after
acre after country mile after fence post
after rain

moonlight after snow

how come or when or why not
existing for two days only after each
calendar date circled red

gas

neighbor
gun
neighbor with his gun
his gun without neighbor

squirrel dove rabbit snapper
dirt gravel oiled blacktop
single double over & under

trucks as horses trucks as cars trucks
as wagons trucks as livelihood trucks
as projects trucks as legend trucks as
myth trucks never missing from
any picture

that scene with the hat on the antennae

corn

the mind a galaxy the life a cell

 
I am not equal to my longing what I feel
in spite of my life slapped down silenced strangled
by my life how to reach

inside a silo a yaw a root from earth to
something tall for which the prairie had
no name a hungering for

an eating

a swallowing I knew I could do
like swords or flames but

for what my throat yearned my mouth
knew no taste, my nose no smell, my skin
no possible my heart

my heart had no limits but my life
had no language beyond
the every day the every night the don’t you dare the little
ladies don’t do that the  just who do you think you are the
thousand pound chairs of don’t ever tell you’d better not ever
tell
 
what kind of world creates a child on fire
then beats her for burning

this hugeness that I wanted I learned better than
to want I learned better than to want
to want

and yet