The Call

Next to our land is a rusty iron gate, creaking,
asking for a good dose of graphite, choked
with brambles, a wetland herb garden
studded with graves, a grizzly reminder
of numbered days. Meanwhile, far beyond
the wheat fields of the Great Plains,
a grackle makes the same rusty call
in the Arizona backyard we left behind.

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Inspired by a Paint Chip Poetry prompt

My husband is recreating an Arizona landscape for his “Surreal Arizona” Gallery.