in corn country the fables are of thumbs. silos abut an aboriginal mayhem abuts the topologies of mud & manure. some of these thumbs walk upright - some of these thumbs know names.

perhaps everything you've ever heard about crayola will turn out to be true, & perhaps those stilts beside the baler are the intention of the lurking behind the barn.

a shadow here is axiomatic, like a house fly sitting on the stump of a pink pearl eraser as the curtains wait out the doppler of passing trains.

at night, & if you listen.

the harvest moon arrives w/in the plasmids of a slow, slow blues but summer's something different indeed. distance in the corn crib & a wild cow moan.

consider this an invitation. one morning in late august a gypsy approaches you through a gap in the fence row in the middle of your milking & hands you a leaflet entitled surrounding inevitability: the history of crayola in arcana.

it was all that you would have expected but at once. later that night the corn came down, a chorus of dried husks & romany ball point pens, of the cider & something else.