This pregnant afternoon I found myself
rooted in the strangest comfort,
staring through the bottom
of an empty Belgian summer
white, thinking that the clouds to the west had grown

impossibly huge
or that the western sky had shrunk.
I thumbed the cool lid of the next bottle
and stared at their advance.

Soon they would be overhead.
I turned to consider the white shirts
and sheets on the line-- their practiced undulation.
The open windows of the Chevy in the drive--

their receptiveness. The arousal of the saw grass
in the field where the animals lay
staring at the clouds
and their dark bottoms--

great basal anenomes
that churned with the threat of electric tendrils
whipping down
to pull cows off of farms

and up into the mantle.
All the while my mind had begun to tingle
like an asphyxiated hand, thinking
of the hard truths of being wrong.