He cracks his pain like stalks of wheat

   sits at the kitchen table feathering

seeds from husks brittle as cicada shells
dulled gold in the gaslight which threads

   a sound the colour of gunmetal through

the quiet eye of evening. Slowly pours the harvest
back into himself, rises and a heaviness

   rolls against his lungs and he breathes

a silver whistling of grain shifting over
the clear membrane of his life. One night

   checking the traps he finds a possum

forearm snapped, flesh and fur already
crisping back like peel opening to the white

   pith. It goes for him as he removes the bar.

He can do nothing for it. Resets the trap.
Rolls a cigarette, smoke rills vanishing

   like flickers of a movement, dark wing, clawed foot,

along the skirting boards. Nothing you might name.
On a day when the colour rings like the bite

   of a swung axe, bird shadows

the scudding chips, the sun blades him
like a sapling cracked with the first blow. Toppled

   he lies gazing into an ambiguous candour

of blue and mutters – Blow over. Blow over me.
He finds the contained patience of seeds –

   if he waits long enough, threads of denim

will unwind to roots fringed with hair, confidently
entering the friable earth, toes and fingers

   curl like ranunculus bulbs, hips and backbone

splay off as rusted strips of metal, scythe blade
curved beneath the winnowing jaws of diligent

   insects. Hoarded grain sinks like skimmed

stones beneath a brindled mask of dam water