7 a.m.
Cool morn, the sun still low
and cornstalks wet with dew.
The fields exhale moisture
all night and now smell sweet
of corn, of girls’ body oil and gasoline.
Geneticists call these plants
“factories,” perfect for growing
seed. Young silks out and tassels,
the reason we’re here, poke up
bright yellow and wet. Pollen
sticks to the girls’ arms and hair.
10:30 a.m.
The ground is hard to walk,
but the machine we normally ride
broke down again. I refuse
to think of a sea of green,
but watch the girls float
through broad leaves yanking
out tassels as we go, each row
taking at least an hour. I think
of women swimming in cold ocean
water, their endurance buoyed
by their fatty tissue channeling
all energy to their stroke.
1:00 p.m.
Even at 14 these girls know
at some level we are raping plants
to make hybrid seed. Female
corn de-sexed for male to pollinate.
I watch them at lunch, the sun high
and hot, their sweaty skin alive
with blood-red glow from work
and hormones. They flirt with me,
an older boy from state college,
and they talk about sex as much as
the boys in crews I’ve run summers
before. Already they sense the growing
numbers of boys they can never touch.
That the seeds of their loves are
predetermined, their gene pool
is fractioned off by the acre.
6:00 p.m.
Long days. This one well over ten
hours and now the bus ride home.
Younger girls collapse together
in the back. Next year in school
they might wear braces, their breasts
will fill from quarter to full, they’ll
begin fighting with their mothers.
A few of the most mature girls
sit up front and talk with me in husky
tones, sleeves cut off to the shoulder,
wet feminine smells issuing
above the diesel. For once they hope
science will not determine the minus
signs in their equations. Decide the rest
of their evening. Tell the rising
and setting of the moon.
Copyright 2006 by the Tipton Poetry Journal.
All rights remain the exclusive property of the individual poet and may not be used without their permission.