Discontent – 280 North

The blue silhouettes of mountain pines
   cut like saw teeth against the tangerine sunset.

 Metal skeletons of high voltage pylons
   unspool threads of electricity.

Power lines crosshatch
   white tiger stripes of evening clouds.

 “Do you feel the wind,
   shaking the car?” he asks.

Could he come with me to the farmer’s wedding
   in the hills and lakes of Masuria, could I ask him?

Could I take him where white clouds
   reflect in the blue-green waters,

 where reeds rimmed with mud rustle in the shallows,
   and stinging nettles grow shoulder-high on the shore?

First published in Residual Heat under my pseudonym Aga Black.