Long Lane Farm
Nicholas Martino

Radishes, turnips, squash blossoms and the still-living bees
inside the blossom’s paper lantern, the goldenrod assembling

two burned-down cigarettes outside campus.
It used to be a penitentiary for girls. It used to be
“The Connecticut School For Friendless Girls.”
They kept cows, and milked them. Went strawberry picking

down the same road I walked, heat-seeking, recklessly alone, my heart
balanced on my hips. It was autumn, and everywhere

rusting off the branches. In the lot two men
sold pumpkins out the back of a beat pickup,
checkered and handsome, sleeves rolled up
past their elbows, turning as a yellow school bus

passed beneath the Vidalia moon.
You approached me, mineral and simply dressed,
of winter arms. That night I rewound
our moment in my head, milling through sky-tall light,

your smile sapling, sending,
the yellow school bus passing, gone.

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