Mud-caked and defeated 

we rove over a country choked 

into submission. The thunderstorms 

that broiled the night before 

leave it soaked and steaming. 

We sweat in a sick grey dome. 

Back, in a colonial cottage 

I lie in the company of a mosquito 

and try to think of a time before uprooting, 

repotting, allotting (how propertarian!)— 

Before gaffa tape strewn in aprovenancial dirt 

and the plains wanderer’s baking bitumen grave. 

I try, but fail 

to think of 

a gentler cultivation.