Rust. I am covered in rust. Fine, red dust like ancient sun-baked earth, the dust we come from and to which this steel will eventually return, and with it, one supposes, the cities it built.

I stand facing my slice of Prairie, its shadowed skin of snow, flecked with wispy hair of dry grass, stretching away from the fence to the setting sun. The illusion of open space. The illusion of freedom.

Back in the yard, more un-cut pipe beckons, lying cradled in severed, rusty bands reaching skyward like the decaying ribs of some great, dead beast....