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March 25, 2024

Montana Wheat Field

By Barbara Link

Montana Wheat Field

I stand
in wheat
half a yardstick high,
grasshoppers spring into my cupped hands,
Dad counts heads of hail-damaged stalks.

Suddenly,
rattler, rattler, rattler,
clicks like tap shoes on a car roof,
flat head,
polished agate eyes,
a coiled hemp hose braided with diamonds,
tail like Salome's hips.

An angel of a snake.

I think of frogs moving through the snake's belly,
dissolving like bar soap in wet fingers,
first the leaf-green skin,
then flaky white flesh that tastes like chicken,
then putrid yellow lungs, burping air,
rosebud heart,
last the lace-white bones.

Dad grabs a broken shovel,
strikes,
slicing head from eight-foot body,
brown and yellow kaleidoscope:
the hard earth,
Dad's khaki pants and straw hat,
the linen colored wheat and dust on my shoes,
the broken handle of the shovel,
dried mud on the
rusty blade.






Article © Barbara Link. All rights reserved.
Published on 2017-03-06
Image(s) are public domain.
1 Reader Comments
Carol abbe
03/07/2017
09:19:38 PM
Beautiful, Barbara, beautiful.
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