There’s heartache in these lines
cracking through once-hard ground
crumbling to course dust.

Sadness drifts here
beneath these yellow Cottonwoods
where old men sit
in distorted circles – a parlor
for the ornery and rejected –
where a can of beer
accompanies a well-worn story
told with fading bravado
fear swallowed in slow gulps.

These grains of river sand
dry in wind, sifting
through time, piled around toes
of shuffling boots, legs
dangling off a tailgate
or sitting awry in a chair
whose fabric is stretched
past the point of brittle.