for Hillary
The general shape of every dream I ever have is her
taffy pink dress coiled around her middle;
like clothes she washes, it spills out. Her hands,
stiff and brittle, ill-used balers rusting
in the neighbor’s hay barn, some
middle-aged white woman clutching
the late August grass – It’s her last chance
at something good in a world greying
with old colonials, parched lawns.
The best dream is just wishing
for whatever’s held away from us:
a lit house,
a ladder, another hour
through the feral potato fields
towards a slab of granite sky.