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      ...Not even the lone windmill, miles and hills away, risked showing color...
     A young wheat stalk twitching slowly, rolling between pink lips, one hand carelessly thrown over the steeringwheel black with axle grease. A few more rounds and all the hay would be displaced. No longer the tan strips across the deep velvet green of the field but into tight rolls along the fence. A flushed red arm sweeps the moisture from under the hat bill. In the last minutes of light the last puttering ends, as the two new versions of beasts of burden are allowed to collapse at the peak of the slope. And the two similar silhouettes stiffly remove themselves from their perches.

 
ex Teri Lynn Imus, “The Home Place,” in Plains Song Review 1 (1999) : 58-60
borrowable at archive.org : link

—

densely-packed prose this, poem within.
 

23 May 2026