Plains Poem for Ceres

by Ashley Oakes

On June nights foxes slip
into a favored spot very near
the foundation of a house,
not thinking about
who owns what. They pay zero

attention to my cautious turning
back. See this predator,
eyes forward, so focused
on the hunt. Risk needs to be

promised reward. It needs bodies
to pay for the war, but I have
a clumsy build. I could never
earn my keep outdoors.
The tame lawn feels wild

with zinnia. Even lamb’s ear, in secret,
bedazzles the dark, velvet as an Elvis picture.
Sequins falling, summer sets its trap,
knowing there is not a single knife blade
folded in my heart. They watch me,

just another object
moving quickly. They can’t know
my grandparents crossed a border
to elope. Here the churches
look like truck stops,

and God is on the move
at times mistaking the sky
for a Walmart sign.
This land could be
the ocean, losing a few sailors

every day. It says nothing
as I put one of its sunsets
in my pocket like a shell.

It could be a witch, famous for her curses.
But see how she lets the moon sleep next to me.

***

Ashley Oakes lives in Tulsa, OK. Her work has appeared in Claw+Blossom, Pink Panther Magazine, Meetinghouse, Quarter(ly), and elsewhere. A 2023 finalist for the Patricia Cleary Miller Award For Poetry at New Letters Magazine, Ashley was a featured author at the 2025 Scissortail Literary Festival at East Central University.