When Midwest air threatens strangling,
and green breath of plants suffocate,
when black, practical earth no longer satisfies,
despite the relentless fertility,
and the garden seems more weed than yield,
when I cannot tell where drone of locust
and chain saw end and inner ear begins,
when muddy rivers aren't enough,
and bleak specks of sweat roll into
little cigars on my neck,
I go in search of lighthouses;
there is a lighthouse muse within:
a keeper of the water,
the eye of lake, bay, or ocean,
a tall steel cow bellowing.
She is the guardian of sand dunes,
counter of the tides,
conscience of fishermen and sailors,
mourner of sunken hulls
whose bones harbor murky playgrounds.
I go to see her,
to walk these shores,
until windburned, I empty
my humidity into air
and freeze my feet to numbness
in lapping tongues of clear water.
Then my skin fits again.
I return to dig potatoes
in black, tumid earth,
to pick tomato medallions,
and face this harvest on Midwest knees,
on this garden prayer rug
pointed to that lighthouse.