This white-dust road is in for an evil storm today.

The wind seems up to something by the casual way

it whistles by. Here, sixteen miles from anywhere,

a weedy mailbox waits, mounted on an auger,

a spiral blade ripped from a combine harvester.

This hard twist of American DNA,

caduceus-like, has cured some beery boy’s addiction

to knocking down the mailbox in his black S10.

The flag is a red ear against the head’s bright white

and the door a hound dog’s tongue hung out.

The letters of a letter crawl to life and bite,

blackwidowing the hand that reaches in.