The boy smashes a grasshopper then makes its legs dance on the sidewalk.

Even among these crickets, I long for the company of crickets.

The fields have been harvested: Rectangles of baled hay dot the cleared land.

Outside the liquor store in Umatilla:

A man tucks bottles in his backpack, takes off on his electric bike.

The cricket outside my window chirps slightly faster than my heartbeat.

Dusk at the park: White moths, stirred from blades of grass, gather at our ankles.

Post-windstorm, I lay limbs in a pile, knowing I have not made a tree.

Two crickets chirp as the sun draws a pink blanket over the tired sky.