my first stop in Oklahoma when my dad asked

“is that sound a bug or a broken electrical line” / i said

“no, cicadas” / later, i picked up

a back page, a husk, shatter-clouded, bullet-tapered, / ripping through me / smells paint, acrid, the skin / hiding, they are, in the overstory, looking down /

and of course their sound, always, drone, tone, can we touch? / repeating in that haze

what they(we) are:

scar our knees with peach scrapes again and again, picking fruit that’s dropped before we got there; abducting sweetness in jars; writing it all down; making faces like a clown does the mother know her child stares at me over her shoulder, supermarket wash-out pass the time;

buzzing / / /

buzzing / / / hair of steel against legs of string / song and back

again /

‍ ‍

again / the squeal of spring(s): on doing what we can.