By D. Kendric Blake
In Topeka I stopped
To consider Christina’s World,
Flat and barren,
Fecundity gone,
And she, Christina,
Impaled upon wheat
On a forsaken burnt-brown hill
Near her seasoned-grey house,
Its shingles peeling in pieces
Like boiled eggshells,
While in pale-pink she winces
To reason why a dead dusk sky
Contains her world
Like snake skin she cannot shed .
Yet, the barn‘s one side looks good,
Its lines solid and steady
On the crest of the ocean-prairie,
And she, Christina, has hope
That this view may not be the best,
And that tomorrow from another side
She may finally decide about the rest.
D. Kendric Blake
