They May Come to Break Us
        Rosewood, Florida, 1923

Outside sheets are pulling
this way and that.

Fields are smoke,
smoke is air.

I wait for my fingers to be bent
knuckle to knuckle,

my porch overrun
with rope and shotgun

but the hounds don't show.

My husband fills my linen
every night with arms, legs —

long heavy branches,
maple filled, holding me

like there's nothing outside but clay
and fields of sunflowers

growing farther than I can walk.

Torches may come like fox paws
to steal away what we earn

but with our bodies bound
by the skin, my arc to his curve,

we are stalks that will bend

and bend

and bend...

Copyright © 2007 Jamaal May All rights reserved
from The MacGuffin
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission