Headlight Spot

There was a blankness off the muddy path and to the left. 

Barbed wire fence laced in ghostly wire deteriorating in stillness, 

sinking like decaying bones. 

The fence was disappearing into colourful thrush, 

Crawling purple knapweed and yellow agrimony, 

But there was a sense of moribund stillness, 

of atrophy or decay.

And just then the sound was like being swallowed whole,

In unrelenting symphony of beating wings and crying cicadas.

in the hungry mouth of August heat.

It surrounded me on the dust clouded road beside the telecommunications field. 

Where the shelled towers offered no shade nor shield, 

no respite from three o’clock sun on bare shoulders.

Of course, there are few places to hide in the county.

Through and through the eyes follow. 

Watching from the backseat,

no speaking and no isolation. 

The county swam green before my eyes

 Like my mother’s sage quilt, 

my father’s Japanese pens. 

Even so, the countryside looks like broken hearts to me, 

like hollow eyes, whispers in gingham. 

I wonder where they all go to disappear,

to step away from the throb of these fields empty and overgrown,

hungry and immovable. 

On Bond Road the house is sublime in its melancholy, 

Inoffensive and boasting rural allure.

Like basil stalks and paling blue wallpaper, 

moth wings and egg shells. 

But these walls give away the creatures who scuttle near as I hold my breath 

as I lather soap over my feet. 

Floating between the sound in shades of white, 

I slip easily to daydream in the stagnation.  

In the cherry of my cigarette I can paint the landscape anew, 

Swaying clothes on lines between levelled roof tops, 

The faces in the windows painting colour into city dusk. 

Warm with anonymity, 

held by the multiplicity and the vigour. 

The county holds me too, 

An insect under a boy child’s gaze. 

A leaf pricking the waters surface.

It raises the hair on my neck, 

As red and garish as my figure in this place, 

As the curve of my nose and the length of my skirt 

In this place where theres nowhere to hide, 

Lest I become the creature,

Just behind the wall.

Author's Note

Looking for feedback on this piece which would theoretically open a poetry collection I'm composing called "Glass-Eyed Rabbits". Looking for all types of feedback from grammar to stylistic choice!