is perimetered by cornfields, rolls with Pennsylvania
gentleness and arguable boundaries. Late June, the first
cut of hay has been bailed. Round bundles rest
on small summits, a field’s thirsty punctuation
with logicless placement. The cattle are decades gone,
the trough, arbitrary and dry. The Marcellus shale men
have come back with gas leases for farmers to sign.
They haven’t seen grass this green since the steel plants
shut down. Even the ghosts have given up on this town.
Where sky meets field, far from the noise of the interstate
from which we are just a place on the way someplace
else, far from the latent commerce of the few remaining
diesel engines that moan in the night like lost calves,
a space exists. A thin line of in-between holds its ground.
Peace intersects every acre like a scythe slicing
grass just dry enough to call hay.
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