n American Gothic Encounter of the Third Kind
A farmer stands
pitchfork in hand
straight and stoic.
Unblinking, he stares
at the horizon
for a long time.
His daughter steps out
of the white frame house
to water her geraniums.
She notices he hasn't moved
from the spot she last saw him.
Worried, she comes over
to touch his shoulder,
a question in her eyes.
She tries to see
what he's thinking.
She tries to know
what he's seen.
A pale blue ichor
slides down the tines
of his pitchfork,
drips to his sleeve.
But if she notices,
she says nothing.
She takes his arm
and leads him inside.
She places the fork
next to the door.
He never tells her
what he has seen.
But in the morning
she finds plenty
of meat in the freezer,
enough to tide them
through a long
winter of strange
Northern Lights.
.
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