Dick Jones |
He stuck the cigarette
in the corner of his mouth,
lit it, coughed again.
Above the cornfield, crows
rose up like ashes.
He watched them riding thermals
into the thick blue.
Shifting his weight (husk-
weight, light as chaff),
he squinted tears, refracted the bright,
hard truth of corn on the edge
of culling into every August
past. From scythe to combine
he had breathed the dust,
sweated the daylight up to
harvest home and beyond.
Now breath was measured,
here, on a doorstep chair
a day or two from harvest.
No hand writes.
No paper
pretty in pink
or green lined
or headed
or just plain white
and folded four times
carefully.
No pen primed
by thumb
or uncapped
to the salt air
and surfing sideways
breaking words
like foam.
No.
Just the envelope
unworded
unaccommodated.
But the envelope
is hollow
like an ear
and I have breathed
into it once
wordless
and sealed it with
a movement of the tongue
unspeaking.
And delivered it
to your door.