Moving House in the San Joaquin Valley

Today the satellite is taken down
and soon the roof will look as dull and brown

as the fields between the Save-Mart parking lot
and Highway 99 – their dirt clotted

into tiny mountainsides where local
schoolkids split a joint and gab in So-Cal

dialects. Husks of corn that grew beside the house
wherein the German Shepherd’s youngest howls

came drifting through the bedroom window,
infantile as a moon discovering its glow,

now fertilize the evening mud –
evanescence at its verge. The thud

of every channel’s late-night show we watched
against the wicker lawn of each botched

barbecue and birthday party held
lolls in the still valley air. Like the burnt smell

inside the blackened fence posts
lie flat the fallen signals of our hosts.

by Michael Homolka