Once living / Final harvest

ONCE LIVING

i remember once living

inside my whole keen body,

skin brilliant and sweet,

sharp briny tonic

darting up my blood

at the sight of you.

in the green wealth

of spring, i breathed

each bright, immaculate scent,

the air full and reckless.

naked as new grass

beneath my fretful clothes,

temperance was impossible.

the body's swift places

swelled open, incautious

as any flower.

that rich hunger

owned me, and i craved

the fertile chaos of earth,

where you would bring me.

in this climate, the seasons'

shift is less impatient.

the air sweetens, the white

bodies of trees collecting

color at the tips. i watch

the slow, rough entry

of green through black dirt,

my skin silent

and unchanging. i wait

for the radiant, moist shock

of spring, for touches

to break me open,

for the dull weight

of this body

to turn to light

and burn.

FINAL HARVEST

from the road, i'm afraid

your garden's burning, bushy

smoke sprouting up

through tinderous leaves

and crisp hollow stalks. closer

to the cultivated border,

i see you in the ashy cloud,

stirring dry earth up

into dust, as you plow under

what you wouldn't bear.

you straddle a row, hips

cocked back, grainy kerchief

knotted at your neck.

the crunch and roar of engine

and tines conceal me.

the gritty sweat in fat

blisters on your back

is all the moisture

your garden owns. cast

through the broken dirt

are the vegetables

you'd promised me since seed:

green tomatoes, bitten through

to their juiceless cores, stripped

cobs of knobby corn, flimsy

blackened peppers. flakes

of brown leaf, wiry twists

of vine catch in the hairs

or your flexed arms.

at the garden's end, the machine

rears up, moaning, its teeth

grinding on air. your voice

breaks through, in a tense

steady chant, cursing

the bitter earth, the empty

retentive sky, cursing all

that blisters and withers

and, even tended,

is dry at the heart.

Copyright Frontiers Publishing, Inc. 1994
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved