Imagine the twisted white
summer-night-sweat sheets I stripped
off our bed the morning you left

were something so similar
to homing devices, geese threaded them through
the southbound sky

to patch a plan for their return.
Imagine summer’s upturned barrel burning
as love is said to burn, rusty and hot

as the seat of the John Deere
still sitting where you let it run
out of gas the day your brother fell

through hoops to the silo floor.
Imagine my mind’s corroded metal,
its gear-teeth biting but failing to catch

hold of a hope that the rye will ripen without you,
then picture the rhubarb growing so red
I had to make a wine of it

to return it to the earth. Picture our sheets
like prayer flags along the clothesline,
coupling with the wind.