Small town are for knowing who’s poor.

I recognized her, the welder’s daughter.

In a store she touched a green dress

But she couldn’t buy it.

The salesgirl scolded, making her ashamed.

That’s how the sun comes through the open door today.

Still poor from night rain.

The road to town is a muddy tongue.

The forest stands ajar

And I could get up from this chair and disappear

Into the coldly steaming pine,

Which is like the next great philosophy

That will pity no one.

Its particularity is awesome.

The blue flower whose name I never remember

Joys through the eyeholes of a horse’s skull,

A horse named Lola we kids rode.

Past the anthill roofed with mothwings,

Handfulls of elk hair like smoke the barbed wire snagged.

At sunset the invisible lakes rise and color

Like pieces of the biggest mirror ever broken.

Like those things,

But not those things exactly.

Interchangeable, let’s say.

I could walk through groves where there are no paths

Until I was shrouded in cobwebs—I’ve done it before—

Like someone who lived in a dark cellar forever.

Like someone who lived in a dark cellar forever,

Needles resilient under my feet,

I could walk out into the sunlight

And tell you the truth:

The girl who wanted the dress doesn’t matter—

No more than the dress itself,

Or green.