I dreamt that I buried a man’s arm
in a field so empty and wide
anyone who’d seen me kneeling
would’ve wondered if I were the broken end of a tree
or a man.
The arm was warm
and it reddened where I pressed my fingers against it.
I was sure I hadn’t killed the man
but remembered holding him,
and knew his blood had left the print on my shirt.
When I woke up I thought of my father shoveling mud from a
row of holes filled with water–
he’d hit an underground stream.
I had to steady wooden poles that shuddered and numbed my
whole body
as my dad drove them in deep enough to stand straight.