It's been this way before:
the patriarchal sun turning
his gray side out like a banker
locking his door.

Main streets lie fallow
as desert bones. Tumbleweeds
dance on doorsteps.
Logo caps commiserate
round gun-racked pickup trucks
while only the crow's cry

mocks the stillness. And I –
turning a shoulder to the dark wind –
pilgrimage past the boarded school,
slip the wrought-iron portal's latch,
drop to one knee and lay a peony
on my mother's grave.

- Mark Scheel