Opening Day

for A.E. Stallings

I.
The sunflower seed plot was an utter bust.
No dove gorged on a head or bathed in dust.

The stockpond? An equally hopeless try,
no bird of peace whistling through the sky.

Then we patrolled a twelve row shelterbelt
so hot it made my Winnie's barrels melt.

Back at the Bronco, breasting out the dead:
"Doves love to loaf in lilacs," Feeney said.

II.
I saw two youths, rummaging in the soybeans.
Alan would call such tall Dakotans "boybeans."

They ported guns, searching for fallen doves,
surrogates for their unrequited loves.

I blind-handled Fenian through the field.
The downed doves? No longer crop but yield.

They poured me coffee. I recited verse.
Old man, trained dog, they had encountered worse.

III.
Opening dawn if I could have my way:
lowering clouds would grant a glint of day

under the east horizon. Gwynn would sit
on a five gallon pail, two dogs would shit.

Doves flushed from the stubble to the trees
would all be headshot, carried to my knees,

and every poet would perfect his scrawlings.
Dad would be with me, hosting William Stallings.