NOTHING UNDER THE BED
There’s something frightening about cornfields,
everyone knows. Farmers sense it, as they
inspect crops at dusk, noting the wind’s soft rattle
in the silk. If you grow just a few ears
behind your house, you’ll hear doubts whisking up,
questions latent in tight rows of husks.
Should I have let them turn off the machines?
Should I have just let her go?
It’s not crop circles we fear, or hidden creatures
careening through the night, but our own hesitations.
Moonlight makes every thought acute.
But we have the same history; we’ve all run
from the same something, breathless and exhilarated,
ancient breezes circling the farm, the yard, the house.
There’s something frightening about cornfields,
everyone knows. Farmers sense it, as they
inspect crops at dusk, noting the wind’s soft rattle
in the silk. If you grow just a few ears
behind your house, you’ll hear doubts whisking up,
questions latent in tight rows of husks.
Should I have let them turn off the machines?
Should I have just let her go?
It’s not crop circles we fear, or hidden creatures
careening through the night, but our own hesitations.
Moonlight makes every thought acute.
But we have the same history; we’ve all run
from the same something, breathless and exhilarated,
ancient breezes circling the farm, the yard, the house.