STRAW

Everybody feels the wind blow — Paul Simon

You knocked the stuffing from my shirt that blew,
a sail, tautened by the wind whistling through,
and my last straw hanging threadbare and loose
from my broompole frame. You gave no excuse,
just staked me alone in a field for crows
to peck holes in my pumpkin, and who knows
when I'll next see a farmer turn this soil
or sow. 'Til then I'll feel the cords uncoil
from out my waist and wrists and I'll throw straw
to wind like drifts of dandelion spore
that, blown, will leave me thin and thinning more,
my heart, my straw, gone lost, blown free yet far.