I climb the stile and drop into the field, feet sending a dust cloud into the air. It films my eyes and I blink it away as best I can. The sheep are bloated yellow dots under the crumbling boundary wall, awake but still, conserving energy before their move to the next patch of shade.…

…slap at thrip and thunderbug, midge & mosquito come whining from the dark at neck and wrist, ancient blood knowledge voiced by this time & in this place long before the winking out of every point of light & too the ones unseeable, inaudible, stars so far that they are yet to be even seen here so young is the planet in relation, how it will go with the one to whom you are wed Mary well ask the biting bloodbugs, ask the twirling phantoms hereabouts & implore the leaves & the shine on them & if you must grieve at this point before death then