Devil’s Lake

Her hair mounds and wilds like it knows the landscape

for desire, holds a patch of briar for the next farmhand

to tell her how it’s gonna be. Her land dares the reaper

to harvest all her moons while the neck rises, slender &

silent as a Montana interstate for resting your eyes,

dosing into disaster where the truckstop speed wears thin.

Her teeth come out at night, where they get ideas, smile &

grind with her locust legs when the friction is a reflex

of hunger. A man’s eyes hold dirt in the way

they sculpt her bust, constellate her handles, sway their time

with her pendulous hips. Her body is twilit beneath this storm,

waxing at how stout and erect a darkness can enter and

unclasp worn-out jeans with the ease of a falling black evening

dress. But to the rose, all those desires are a cross-

roads, a rood upon the land, a fence between the pistil and the stem.