citylife
homestead nights
Folder:
dusted vault
Homestead Nights
(Sequel to Townhouse Days)
The road out of the city
was a long exhale —
brick giving way to hedgerow,
hedgerow to open field.
By dusk, the air
tasted of cut grass and diesel,
and the porch light
was the only star
that didn’t blink.
In the kitchen,
boots left by the door
like commas in a sentence
I’d been writing all term.
Nights here were wide —
crickets stitching the dark,
the wind combing the wheat,
the barn’s slow breath
settling into the rafters.
Come morning,
the rooster’s call
would fold me back
into the farm’s grammar,
but for now
I lay between two lives —
one lit by streetlamps,
one by the moon on tin —
and felt the tracks
still pulsing
under my skin.
.
