many roads lead to town

but I choose the one that bypasses

the newly raped intersection

the massacre of old cottonwoods

(the farms look nude and embarrassed

like someone has ripped down their shower curtain

shampoo still running down their backs)

the day after they hit the ground

the crew arrives with the jumbo chipper

and finds bouquets of blue delphinium

wrapped in black ribbon on every stump

black exhaust billows into the air

swirling around the roar of the machinery

and a meadowlark sits on an orange traffic cone

and sings

Megan E. Freeman