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Future Pastoral/Curatorial photo

After the earth becomes a brutalist’s wet concrete dream
and every fragmentary farm town I ever loved is razed,
Monet’s Haystacks will still hang on the eggshell
walls of a museum where my wife and I take our children
and point to the soft light falling on mounds of grain.

We make observations
like, O snow piled just like this on the field where I lost my virginity.
And, O the trees were once so full of chlorophyll you could taste it.
And, O a midday summer nap was a rosebud tucked behind eyelids.
And, O how the sky blue chill opened our lungs to the atmosphere.
And, O this is how simple art was—paint, canvas, early morning mist.

We imagine each frame holds a thousand brushstrokes of memory,
sigh and tilt our heads to catch nostalgia at all its angles.
And our children, because they are children say, O mothers,
please do not talk about your virginity.