Rut-crippled and cracked, does
the hard-wrung landscape harbor the moisture heaven asks of it
to weep for you—
Flatbeds and buses your accomplices, the rolling hills your witnesses,
relentlessly expelled by way of tin villages and depleted
marshes dry as tongues,
once you make it,
If you don’t turn back in tears, dual-condemned citizens,
you will broach your enemy’s gasping jaws
You will not reap the winnings of those who came before—
The line drawn through rivers and deserts
This poem was published in Issue 115 of the Arlington Literary Journal, 2019.
Andy Oram
February 12, 2019