This evening, upon waking, I saw a face saying, "I'm going to a tractor pull."
And I didn't understand. Outside, it was dusk enough to make things invisible,
And I heard a car swerve as it skinned the elbow of an ugly child.
It didn't make the news, though I did wonder
How hard it would be for a tractor to skin anything,
No matter how impulsive it was on the open fields.

It was an hour before I fell asleep again
And dreamed I was on a soggy bed,
While Mom ironed linen curtains in the other room, saying:
"Isn't it awful here with all the heat
And the fever blisters and no trees to block the tumbleweeds
From coming in the windows?"
I looked up at the open prairie skies
And all its stillness and I forgot that the TV was silent,
Letting us remember all the loud colors of the world.