It’s November—Sierra Nevadas—and I’ve come down to your weed farm for work, crash-landing into your arms.
The wind’s turned cold. Nights black with rain. And you wait for the mallards from Canada so you can blast them out of the sky.
“You must all be tellin’ your ducks not to come down here this year,” you say to me, reaching for a beer, gleam flashing through hazel eyes that look even sadder than mine.
Outside the window, oaks drop acorns to the ground. Branches sway in valley winds. Dogs and coyotes howl across scattered farms.
In the half-light I see the dim outline of your wrecked Prowler—my temporary home. Inside is my duffel bag, bottles of Shiraz, scissors sticky with resin, and turkey bags filled with the pruned buds you pay me to cut.
I like the names of all your plants: purple haze, skywalker, blue dream, northern lights. “How do the ducks know where to go?” I reach over you to the bed stand for my glass, lured by your scent, intoxicating as wine.
You shrug—“Dunno.” You drink your beer. Glance out the window at the blackening sky. “Earth’s magnetic fields,” you say, remembering. “I think it’s magnetic.”
“I always wanted to kill something,” I say. “If I’m going to eat it, I mean. Somehow seems more right. You ever feel guilty?”
“No.” You drink your beer, study me from some kind of distance. “Just the way it is.”
