Pitch and Lead

At first, it seems like a game.
The pointer spins and you
place your left foot on something red
then the same foot on something yellow.

After six more rotations
you've forgotten who you are.
Annular light filters through tricks of sky
and it seems you're no longer in Wichita.

A vine of wind encircles your house,
breathing identity too large to divide.
You are its unsleeping eye.
The world changes from varicolored to pitch and lead—

cold like the color of bone
bleaching in an overgrown wheat field,
left foot wearing a ruby slipper
poised on a golden road to nowhere.