A Further Sea

In the attic I sleep in a swallowing heat.
The green carcasses of beetles line the floorboards;
afternoon creaks through its ecclesiastical hours.

Topriders skim the roof, its tar-hardened cloak,
and light rips west of the mountains, where the neighbor’s boy
trips on the enamel hoof of a horse buried in the field.

The rain slipping into the distance, a strange fact.
Our house was built in a valley where the storms
shook it. As if God were thinking of me.