Harvest

I must admit,

I thought I’d never

hold your hand.

Remember when we

walked to the cemetery? I

should have been more

considerate of your feelings

and your upbringing. But your

skirt hemmed just below your

mid-thigh panted for you.

We lay down, the headstones

above our heads, steely cityscapes

against an empty sky.

A shadow within a shadow,

colder somehow, even

under a sun that exposed

more than we were

ready to see.

The headstones became dead stones,

interrupted your rhythm, my timing

so we crushed nearby

corn stalks to hold our body’s

weight against the sharp field

and we kept time like

ancient metronomes.