You found this place
Where prairie winds
Sing through broken walls,
In the yard where
Dead trees sag,
Overwhelmed by
High plains grasses,
A two wheeled tricycle
Waits, shadowed
By wild sunflowers,
Furled tight against
The predawn sky.

Your heavy footfalls
Disturb the silence,
Small things rustle
Through the grass,
Somewhere
A shutter
Bangs at random,
As you step over
The remains of
What was once
The kitchen door-
Into an empty dream.

In the prairie stillness,
A child's toys
Spill across the
Slowly sinking floor-
Here there's airplane
Wallpaper, over there
Bloom faded roses,
While across the hall
Fragile cobwebs,
No, white lace curtains
Lie prone beneath
An empty, jagged window.

Where the restless grass
Waves above you,
An endless inland sea,
You bed down for
The coming day
Amidst empty
Dust-filled fruit jars
In the cyclone celler-
Reluctant to disturb
The ghosts that walk
This place and sleep
Within your heart.