Line Dance in Hard Winters

Viewing the barren farmlands
we sit outside in the southern light
in winter, faces warmed
five degrees by sunshine,
luxuriating, or standing
and stamping boots against ground
to wake up the electricity of our legs
one foot at a time like horses taught to count
by stomping hooves, a rural dance-line
taught farmer’s kid to farmer’s kid
where none are clumsy and all keep time.