Holdouts

Boundless dead grass between
rusted barbed wire fences.
Cattle eaten from the outside
in by black flies around the size
of a fist. There is a broken banjo
on the porch of a house made
of splintered boards, and the clouds
move towards it, with hope that they
will wash it all away.
Only the crazy will stay fortifying
what little they have with metal
from their car hoods and tin siding
from their old barns that now bring
shelter to nothing. They stand on their roofs
calling out to all that aims to destroy
them and beg it all to hurry up
or fuck right off. Revealing photographs
of ex-wives and complete strangers
are collaged in spiral patterns,
on their umbrellas, which melt away
with every drop that falls from heaven.