A beer can woven into weeds reads “Natural Light”
and seems right in its declaration of dusk,
on this path by a creek that funnels to nothing,
then bends along a soybean field. I grew up here,
threw stones off the bridge, felt older than I was.
Queen Anne’s lace still grows wild. The beans curve
and nestle in their tamed rows. Elm leaves curl
in the heat, stretch a version of meaning between them,
like backlit webs that, though abandoned, gather prey.
Go and catch a shadow. Get with child a lover.
Strain regret and memory like gnats. The mourning cloak
is a red moth, edged in black and white. The umber
twilight in her wings merely another native shade.