In the Middle of the Summer Triangle

Guns encircled August wheat; detachments
stepped in, beating. Perhaps the collie was dim,
nothing hid there but hissing shadows, in him
and in the wheat. The elms’ long shadows spoke
supper time; the men relaxed, broke barrels,
stepped out. In the lane they were familiar
with each other; gossip of auctions and women;
a held-back sense that who they could see
was not all who was there. At top field, g'nights.
And in the sight of each man going his way,
at the border of it, cutting across the livid
ambits of his perception, the extra
man: liar, peculiar, vulpecula.