Bart Wilcox
Stalled Harvest, Western Kansas, 1958
2024, Oil on canvas, 20″ x 16″

The rain comes on like the two-cylinder Deere
phut phutphut phut
Each drop big enough to wash a child’s face.
A monotone symphony on tinpani roofs.
The wheat sweats the musk you were born in.
Blood-red streaks on combines long faded
To carmine, popping their rivets and complaining
Like uncles playing cards. I. Bidfour. Days.
I. Bid. Five. Dead. And the thunderheads make me
Think of Indians. The towers of rain walking the distance
Like grazing buffalo, can swath one section
And leave the next one dry:
Harvest is bread too soon taken out or left in too long.
So, it all could pass or hail us out. Remember,
This is the same god who threw frogs at Pharoah
for sport. It’s not funny, the love triangle, god,
America and its sunburned beasts of burden.
Not yet.