needles and hay

for Meryl and Julia                   (inspired by a scene from the film August: Osage County)

Mother, we have been married such a long time

so when you screamed to stop the car

so you could wretch into the wild radiant roadside grasses

burnt and toasted willowy in the easy baking sun

I felt compelled to pull your hair from your face with one palm

while I rested the other palm on your upper back

the clasp of your cheap brassiere

rigid soft containment like raised warts on slippery hardwood floors of buckled flesh

but the side of the car beckoned

and I just stood there frozen in the august wind

closing my eyes as you ran through rolling hayfields

when I finally caught up to you

the screen door to the car we called a home slammed shut

the family we pretended to be, with the authenticity of fraudulent fried chicken

in solar baked appliances, drove away

leaving us behind  and left with nothing but

that frozen stifling latent summer wind rolled up in once golden stacks

faded red carpets half sick of all our toxic entrances

that wind that rings through time

bringing us so much further together

splitting us into needles, dirt and hay…