Out on the plain lies abandoned
a hay rake with its hand-hewn teeth pulled and a vodka bottle emptied of its drug. Rain is blowing down from the Altai and beats the sides of a pup tent two Kazakh boys entangle beneath. The camel herd with humps erect stands wet in the dark. Lightening strikes, thunder rolls, and their dog with a lion’s main whimpers and moans. The dampened air is perfumed with mown grass and warm manure. First published in The Fourth River “The Queering Nature Issue”