Sarah Estes

PASTORAL

The circle lies unbroken, and the lord is by and by.
So many things here are by and by. Weighted excuse for anything;
farms like rising heaps of dough, scent of manure thick as lust,
cut by skunk, blackness, the toy-like glint of machines.

The breadbasket rolls over on its sweaty side, a giant drooling dog.
It’s hard to believe anyone lives here. The rivers cross one another like
dancers, then dueling partners. Important men go straight through.
Legends leave their names and beginnings; some trembling
as to a heady bible, with earthworms for congregants.

Cut and bleed. Cut and bleed. It makes no matter, by and by.
By and by, you will die. There’s some ice-cream before you sleep.
The stars ready beneath the hopping grass,
the moon covering us all.

Author: Sarah Estes

Sarah Estes is a poet, essayist and science writer. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Atlantic, New Scientist, Christian Science Monitor, Agni, Cimarron, Cider Press Review, Crab Orchard Review, Drunken Boat, The Missouri Review, New Orleans Review,  Salon, Slate, Southern Review and elsewhere.  Her first book of poetry, Field Work, will be published by Cider Press Review later this year. Field Work was also shortlisted for the Crab Orchard Poetry Series, Dorset Prize, Four Way Books Intro Prize, Levine Prize, Lexi Rudnitsky Prize, University of Wisconsin Press Poetry Series and others.  Her chapbook, Hive Bone,  was published in 2013 with Finishing Line Press.

Plume: Issue #50 August 2015