Cocooned by Cornfields


a lack of breezes,
we wiped sweat, used fans,
and dined on country ham
sweet cured and salty,
fresh tomatoes and corn.
Biscuits and sorghum.

A square of cotton tied
to the rickety screen door
kept flies from the house,
swarms from chicken pens
and hog pens.  Grandma's spray can
pumped the porch to life again
after the sun went down.

Three blocks from the square,
Mrs. Partin milked her cow.
The fading depression and thrift
were ingrained.  Nothing was wasted.
Beauty grew in patches of zinnias,
morning glory vines. Jarflies
sang goodbye to every fading summer.

Iron lungs were real,
yet the  world was Dick Tracy,
the Knoxville News Sentinel,
and Saturdays when Grandma
sent her white leghorns
to a floppy death all over the yard.
And I, aghast, watched her remove
gizzards, liver, coils of guts,
all forgotten at Sunday's table
awash in gravy, pulley bones,
greasy fingers.

Summer evenings I turned the pillow
to sleep cool, listening  to corn
rustling like pages in an album,
yellowed and whispering,
drifting into dreams of blood and white feathers,
drifting with clouds circling the moon.

Sue Scalf