Poem for Monday, December 2, 2013

We Laid in Those Same Fields

There was something about the position of
the sun, like someone tossed it skyward and

it got stuck in the oak branches, dripped fire on
our clothes below, like someone had that kind

of power. Did you have that kind of power?
Your daddy bush-hogging in the distance, we

laid in those same fields, learned to make small
talk, to feign interest in the shapes of clouds and

how to flick invisible mosquitoes off of each
others' hands. I had so many questions then, so

I asked one: why do you pluck the honeysuckle
petals and arrange them on your dress but never

taste them? Later on, we laughed as the tractor
stalled and your daddy cursed in the heat. That is

when I wanted you most--when everything was
torrid, when calm and chaos existed together in

those few quiet seconds. There was something
about how we laid there, the history of the grass

underneath your slender back. How people whose
names we would never know probably bled on it,

cut it down and watched it grow back again like
nothing ever happened.