Melissa Martel Black

The morning after your departure, I found a key
the size of my middle nail, that I hung at my neck,
a copper ring that I slipped on my smallest finger,
a half-shell, white, that I placed in my pocket.

Wearing this armor from the dirt, I aimed
to go forward strong, swinging from the hip
as I plow through. But this road keeps twisting.
After each blind corner is a new bale of grief.

Fresh cut, they’re not placed the way I love,
Precisely, in a shorn field, nor stacked high in the pole barn
to climb once and feel victorious. These are askew
and heavy, bounced from a truck’s back, a hundred pounds apiece

held with baling wire. I cut the wire, peel each flake,
Let them slice my hands to bleed before the fling
far into planted fields where they wink, yellowly. I walk
a while, find another, and more, when what I need is

the low-slung farmhouse or even the water tower
to shelter me. For now, I must break and scatter
each one. I empty my shoes of straw.
Bale after bale. Break, scatter, walk along.

I know the bales will feed, eventually, the animals
of my heart, shush their bleating, pad their stalls.
I know the land will cool and be peaceful,
chickens on their roosting bars, pigeons in the rafters,
but that good season is a long way off.