if the cotton crop fails

if the wheat crop fails

if Oklahomans wander forever

among the back lots of Hollywood

if the potato crops fail

if the corn crops fail

if the sun corrodes a copper

mirror our faces afloat

above a crib in Guadalajara where the ceiling fan

rends our voices

and the secret lives of aloe roots 

confess to a window in feathers of ice

then the bluebells yawning up in ruts

of mining roads will measure the border wall

in the serene apotheosis of their sepals

and one drop of my blood

will freeze in the eye

of an old fox, and one drop

from your eye thaw

to feed the iris bulbs

three beads from our lungs

inhaled by a prisoner

in the electric chair a queen

in a fairy tale a farmer

planting mines east of her field if

the gears of the clouds say yes

if ants flow up and down the funnels

of evolution

then time will prism into its possibles

and you’ll end up in a bar

in Alabama a cherry in your mouth

watching a hotel key

float toward you

or you’ll wake in a labyrinth

called Monday                called Your Life

called The Things You Prayed For

and your intricate decisions

will lead you out and deeper in

your mirrors dissolving in ghost water

and your indecisions will go on

subtracting numbers from the garden

and building houses in the air