I anticipate you like an upcoming party, sex
on the marital bed, my own dark grave,
warm and moist,
waiting to curl in on me like waves
thrown up from the murky, brown depths
of the Atlantic.

I kneel in a ripple of golden wheat
that waves in the wind and stretches
beyond the horizon.
Pink clouds set over me; the heavens
are bruised purple and red.

In this red-sky month
you pile up next to the hay
and the gourds. You cling to the dried dirt
that once was moist in the dark.

Soon you will be stuffed
into mesh sacks, thrown in wicker baskets,
piled in rusty pick-up beds,
stacked on shelves,
placed on cold steel scales.

You’ll be bruised
by the dark leather hands
that cracked at the knuckle
as they plucked you from the ground.
You’ll be caressed
by gnarled arthritic hands
that, too, will crack at the knuckle
as they lift you from the bins
at the grocer’s.

And our mouths water and tingle
and drip
like the melted brown sugar will
over the orange and mushy delight
of tomorrow’s sweet potato casserole
as the bag-people
ask our mothers,
“Will plastic be all right?”

10/15/2005

Posted on 07/15/2009
Copyright © 2024 S. Pelham Flood