HOOK ECHOES by Kevin Heaton

Sunshowers spit-shined the shark’s
tooth that gutted Kansas’ only diamondback.

You were just a puff adder feigning rattles—
scavenging rat droppings with field mice
in bales of switchgrass.

I want tallgrass.

I want a thunder god with flashes of ego—
a two-storied sod house near an artesian well—
flag-side-up roses.

Wall clouds that squall more than hook echoes.

I want storms made out of water—rain that doesn’t flinch
at dust—ballsy wheat—flaxen—fully-headed—two fresh
holstein heifers, & slow-churned farm butter.

I want forty ripe acres of Amish maize—two mules,
& a bullmastiff named Shep who eats corn snakes.

I want to break a green feather bed with a Dundee man.

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