After the long winter, ferns uncoil
and a heart quickens in the mud.
Here, where road crews sweep
tar across the cracked roads,
the dog rolls in a nest of violets.
In the country I left, shots
ring out over a black field. This
morning, a boy’s neck was severed
in the back of a police car. Now
the driveway fir is full at the bottom,
bald at the top. Green sap blankets
the car and the trashcan lids.
I want toward the dark creek bed,
the low wires crossing the lawn.