Out of Kansas by George Rawlins

Out of Kansas

These elevated ships won’t save the lowlands. The place water gathers is, by agreement, dangerous. Sails will darken with monstrous ice, as the rhythm of oars vibrates through our arms. The water speaks your name across its skin

to someone you loved. This, after all, is Kansas—more in the sky than out. Farmers still find footprints from the sea as they till for wheat. From far away we watch anthracite Herefords smolder in the sunset. Surely the fields

will remember the bodies

meant only to form memory, imprinting igneous stone with our shapes, and like grass carp or lungfish that persist in drought or shallow water, we make ourselves smaller, dreaming of escape if only the moon were made of water.

by George Rawlins