Between Kansas and Oz
by Jay Sizemore


there are fields of dried wheat and corn,
dust caked roads without names,
stray dogs fighting over a dead bird carcass.

there are rows of houses with the windows
boarded up like bruised eyes swollen shut,
kids with dirty feet and hands

sitting on the edge of a well. The air smells
like wet dirt, the sky doesn’t make a sound,
a tornado won’t take this place anywhere,

it’ll just erase it from the map,
and when the rainbow falls into that empty field,
no one will sing.






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