September Corn
Curled at the edges, long leaves
bent into broken arms and elbows
jutting out from upright spines,
the cornfield murmurs, rustles,
an awkward graduating class
that shifts and whispers, ears split
open, dry shocks already showing
mouths fat with yellow teeth.
Panicked doves shatter the air
with wing beat, catapult their soft
gray bodies through desiccated
silk and tassel, fleeing an architecture
that won’t exist next week when
the combine rumbles through to reap,
thresh, winnow. We startle, leap—
dogs, birds, me. It’s the season.
We’re not accustomed to it yet.
How quickly whole worlds end.
HAYDEN SAUNIER is the author of A Cartography of Home and four other books of poetry. Read more.
From A Cartography of Home (Terrapin Books, 2021).