Listen to Christian Wiman reading this poem. A town so flat a grave’s a hill, A dusk the color of beer. A row of schooldesks shadows fill, A row of houses near.
A courthouse spreading to its lawn,
A bank clock’s lingering heat.
A gleam of storefronts not quite gone,
A courthouse in the street.
A different element, almost,
A dry creek brimming black.
A light to lure the darkness close,
A light to keep it back.
A time so still a heart’s a sound,
A moon the color of skin.
A pumpjack bowing to the ground,
Again, again, again.
