~DAVID BOND~

AT THE ANNUAL THRESHERMAN'S SHOW

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Steam-powered threshing machines
gag out collars of smoke.
You watch the antique wheelworks,
shake your head shuttlewise.

It is the time of afternoon
when nothing much happens,
but today there is to be
a steam-tractor pull.
There is kettle corn.

In an adjacent field
someone has bound
sheaves of wheat
into shocks like small teepees.

You point to them.
This is where we live.
What we dream.

Beside the steam-driven log-splitter,
an old-timer with missing fingers
rolls a cigarette.
 
 

© by David Bond