Once,
Each hairbreadth of mine
Was lost in a density of hairbreadths,
Anonymous as cornstalks
In an Iowa cornfield.
Now each hairbreadth of mine
Is at least a thousand hairbreadths away
From its nearest hairbreadth neighbor…
Like rural farmhouses
That get farther and farther away
From neighbors.
And the farms, as well, ripple away
Down narrower roads.
And soon we run out of farmhouses
And the land is as naked
As a vacant moonscape.