American Portraits (Deadpan)

-after Winslow Homer

Barren light rocks cries and a wish
Before there was anything to salvage
Paint distances ships emotion clip

Horizon waves trees truncate Cape
Cod lamps or Maine trees like degrees
Of flight songs for actual things

All to their eyebeams owe to this
Stutter wilderness Pilgrims tense with
Brush water-color must be cast quick

Like New England nervous lines scalp
Cropping’s our way to break frames
Night shot thru with sin shame heavens

Heathen origins hear what carries
Across Atlantic journeys which crests
And cusps will have been your master.