Five Poems

 

Field of View

Umber fields riven with tractor ruts
arch into the stubble of winter wheat
as fluted leaves of corn
play on summer's breath.

A figure noosed with cameras
genuflects in a field
to photograph a barn.
Its dark eye looks back.

No one watches the sun blister
the thatch. Not even cattle
resigned and motionless
see us pass.

I couldn't live out here with you:
I'd hoard the green and gold
currency of these hills
and be satisfied.

 

Mermaid

I gather driftwood,
old shoelaces,
my wedding dress for a sail.
I take fresh water,
a compass with its needle quivering.
Wind pushes me into the sun
igniting the rim of the world
then burning out.
Stars don't help:
not even the big bear growling
his little lights.
Out here I'll grow a tail,
forget speech,
find you in a fishes' cove.
I'll drag you home,
a human boy,
lungless, water-sick,
grateful.

 

Scarecrow

My heart is fallow
though you've thrown seed my way,
enticing me like a scarecrow

with your sewn-on eyes, lopsided
smile. Your arms flap and your
gloved hands reach out to me

but all is empty
on this worn-out piece of land.
For seven years my heart's

been picked by birds.
There is an order here.
The crops must be rotated every few years:

alfalfa, corn. Corn, alfalfa.
I can wait my turn.

 

Rag Cutting

I sat with Betty
at the steel monster six feet high,
a two-seater calliope with blades
on either side,
and felt like the princess in Rumpelstiltskin
with straw to spin
though we had a mountain of coveralls
to cut into rags before nightfall.
Cheaper than paper towels for the gas
stations that bought them,
we couldn't cut fast enough.
There was a science to it;
Betty taught me well:
off went the collars with a zip,
followed by the sleeves in two steps.
We cut the sleeves in half
before we cut the front from back.
The legs were next with just a few
steps and then we started over again.
I would have slipped and cut myself
but Betty kept me alert
talking all day about her old man.
"If I keep the dishes done and the bed
made, Harold will love me up two, maybe
three times a week," she said,
or "be sure and feed your man
red meat --it'll keep him sexual."
She was a newlywed at forty-five,
proud to share her advice with me,
down on my luck at twenty-three.
Day in, day out, week after week:
off went a collar, off went a sleeve.

 

Gardenias For A Beast

I bathe in bathwater
scented with mint
and wear gardenias on my wrists.
When I am clean
I come to you.

I am young as you wish.
You have the head of a bison,
the hips of a cowboy.

You charge over me
like a sad beast
clambering at a gate

Your eyes are frantic.