of asphalt—bypasses and freeways—and a venomous, blood-orange dusk above it all.

That was my favorite hour—the balance point—
the momentary gradients of dusk

I remember the eerie, flickering pall
cast up from the instrument panel onto his face,

This was the year drought autumn never ended.
Rivers couldn’t float their barges, prairies
burned in a sulphurous caul, dead blossoms and clots

I followed her gaze past rooftops of tin, fired-clay
and tar, to the lake's far sleights of vision--its gulls
blown sideways and backwards in flight, its islands floating