Sleep After Farm Work

After twelve hours of casting sweat into dust
Handshaking the fingers of weeds that break off at the wrist
And form a bratty new hand next week,
The inside of the airy farm house feels farther away than it really is,
As if transplanted next to the smooth snore of the ocean
Though it only looks out over ripples of weeds and sunlight.

I walk to it.
Sweat and mud in my arm hairs hardens into a grey mortar sleeve.
The screen door breathes in
Then sighs.
Like separating the thick round staples
And knotted burlap
Around the ball
I remove my boots.
My eyelids lose their elasticity.
Broken window shades.
I want to sweep myself under the rug.
Sleep is no longer a task but a gravity and a tug.

My blankets are sheets of turf
My mattress- dirt.
My pillows are quick sand shaping to the shell of my head.
Tired, I drop into bed.
Like matted down grass the surface conforms to my body.
Dissolving what touches it.
August has overlooked me and I am too weary to fold myself under the sheets.
They sometimes clothe me when I awake.
Sleep creeps in.
A black sun hovering,
Petting my head, squeezing room temperature water from a rag,
it trickles down the length of my spine.
My bed slowly begins to open the gate of its mouth.
The branches of veins in my limbs
take root in the ground.