Detour

In backcountry the landscapes become concave,
the windshield curling the business where you've been,
and the gutters you could have cruised in,
but the ground lulls what all the horses take

for the given: the granny mac trees gnawn
by blade, stunted like butchers' fingers in the orchard,
and the clapboards on houses belie how hard
those unseen labor until skin matches bone,

without a briefcase, cellular, or cruise control,
but only the tired marrow and season's crops
stored in cellars or blossoming in roadside stops
where stone hands harvest your money and your soul.