from Skinner’s Neck:
A Chesapeake Sequence

when the winds
kick up like a
tantrum

everything is a bird

pods fly on
feathered leaves the
marsh grass flails like
grounded herons and

farmers’ sheds give up
flocks of rakes and hoes

the old woman holds steady
even when the wind
scoops up her table and

flies away a
hungry gull before it
nose dives into the bay