American Gothic

Holding the morning on the prong of a pitchfork
isn't as easy as it looks. That sudden spring
throwing its weight around, these shadows
of house on the lawn like a broken church.
I know no art but the rake, unearthing straw
by the barn, a festering gold buried under old rain.
God help me, I find my life there, flashes
of the woman I once hand fed raspberries, shrouded
by age. Bun the colour of sackcloth, she approaches,
all wife, whatever she wanted buttoned to her throat.
She sidesteps nibs of daffodils like painter's brushes
wrapped in brown paper, and simply watches me
compost. This man with a rake, dragging
his shadow closer again and again on Groundhog Day.