What only world inhabits you?
In the bottom lands where you live
skunk cabbage catacombs its roots

and even birds remember their gills.
When dog days batten us down
you mourn through the valleys

on a raft of spare tires, spite,
and lawn ornaments, every lash
settling your score. I’ve seen you

bear down fast into Heart Lake
slapped wide open like a broken
hinge. What do you fathom

in those lost Midwestern seas,
fixed clear as Noah’s stoic horizon? Shored
in my tin-cup town, I’m counting

life boats, until the harriers cry home
and your rivers withdraw,
wielding their deltas like rakes.