a place on the breastbone where a pendant rests.

Farmhouses root deep in black dirt,

huddle in maple and cottonwood windbreaks.

Far from the Pacific, the monastery’s bells,

the hospital room where I studied my daughter’s skin

as it pink-blossomed the hour after birth.

This is flyover country. Seen from above

it’s squares of croppish color, a monoculture.

At eyelevel wind whips the crops, which surge like the sea.