The Plow, the Dump Rake, and the Mower - by Audra Kerr Brown

Rotted beasts along sagging

fence lines, backbones

of circular blades rusted

in the tangled vine. Drowned

beneath geometric

shadows of skeletal barns, rakes

like bare ribs poke

toward the looming

sky. How they yearn to belch

blackened smoke, to clear

their throats—a great gnashing

of gears, shafts, spokes, chains—

a collective, mechanical roar,

to once again carve the ground, slash

the hillsides, brand the dirt with a flash

of blinding steel, to ravage the land as

hungry kings on heaving wheels of iron stained

with the blood of the earth.                                                                               

 Audra Kerr Brown lives in southeast Iowa with her husband, daughter, and two cats. Her writing has been published in fine literary magazines such as Popshot, People Holding, Maudlin House, Pithead Chapel, and 3Elements Review. She loves the quiet life and buys every copy of Gone with the Wind that crosses her path.

- The Plow, the Dump Rake, and the Mower first appeared at the publication Psychotic Education