I think about the curve on highway nine all the time

                                                           where, if you

can catch it, the sunlight hits the sage grass so right,

                                                           the earth feels

more real, like when it’s raining, but there, I mean

                                                           in the curve,

it doesn’t have to be raining for the earth to feel more

                                                           real, because

there is the toothless light and the field waving

                                                           its trillion

amber trumpets, because the field is not fearful

                                                           of cattle there,

because cattle cannot be put on sage grass, because

                                                           it is not good

for them to eat, which means something to me about

                                                           belonging

and how my grandmother sits in her chair in a light

                                                           not so different

from the light that hits the curve on highway nine

                                                           with her hair

in rollers, and the TV going all day, and pasta drying

                                                           under the ceiling

fan, and her gnarled fingers softening and curling into

                                                           one another,

against which that same light lands as she dials

                                                           a number,

my number, which she has memorized, to hear my voice

                                                           say hello,

and to tell me that the pope is dying, and to ask me how

                                                           my girlfriend

is doing after the passing of her grandfather, which

                                                           is surprising,

and to say can you please order me more of that

                                                           body wash

they discontinued, because she does not have

                                                           the internet,

to which I say yes, of course, while I notice myself

                                                           drinking

her voice deep and thinking oh god, oh god, I love you,

                                                           I can’t get far

enough away from it, and the time you held me

                                                           after I hit

my head so hard swinging under the big sweetgum

                                                           tree that

I pissed my pants carved such a hope in me that,

                                                           if I let it,

makes me feel strong and primally honest, which

                                                           is to say I too

have trumpets, and am toothless, and need somewhere

                                                           to land.

about the author