Before July turns hot and heavy with fruit,
before the cornstalks preen their cobs of seed,
now while the breeze blows the heads
of roadside lilies, Queen Anne’s lace,
and the black eyes of occasional Susans

I would ask for a lifetime to drive
where chicory unspools blue ribbons
on parallel shoulders, and there by the guard rail

restraining a curve where it grows even taller,
if I had enough time, when I thought
it might still matter, I would tell
those yardstick-tall chicory to step back
from the road and repeat themselves

until they became not a strip but a field
where I could walk like half a Godiva
swirling a quarter mile of blue-violet skirt.