After breaking out (from the treeline that
Stalled our ankles in briers of mud)
We fell to elbows and guts,
Swinging carbines ahead of our heads.
We slow swam on a wheat field
Until it broke against a gray stone wall.
Were this just a river
I knew in Iowa,
It would break on gray stones the same.
The tall dog, Tingo,
Would make his splashing
At a nest of geese, and be
Rebuffed, though barking.
This is no Iowa with mines,
Though in farmhouses they offer wine.
The vines are burned.
Cattle already eaten on an advance.
A skillet warmed at midnight
To cook two eggs.
These lagniappes they say and give
Are nothings when we die.
But the gray stone walls
The gray stone walls
The gray stone walls
That crowd and deny me
Dinner and home and
Children and cleanliness
Afford as they reach
A country of more briers and mud.
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