✺

The Last Things I'll Remember
by Joyce Sutphen

The partly open hay barn door,
white frame around the darkness,
the broken board, small enough
for a child to slip through.

Walking in the cornfields in late July,
green tassels overhead,
the slap of flat leaves as we pass,
silent and invisible from any road.

Hollyhocks leaning against the
stucco house, peonies heavy
as fruit, drooping their deep heads
on the dog house roof.

Lilac bushes between the lawn
and the woods, a tractor shifting
from one gear into the next,
the throttle opened,

the smell of cut hay, rain coming
across the river,
the drone of the hammer mill,
milk machines at dawn.

✺