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Today's poem is by Despy Boutris

In Praise of the Nights Her Thighs Flame Like Fields of Wheat
       

I woke up wanting. To become leaves
held in hands. Not just to lie

in the soil but to become it:
a place of life, growth, held in the hand

of the one who takes me
behind her father's barn at night,

her warm neck the taste of sweat. Dirt
under her fingernails & mine.

The train along the tracks
an urgent metronome.

Much like the rhythm of her voice:
You're the winter wheat I don't want

to tame. My mouth a so-called river.
My greedy hands. So many nights

behind the barn, nights racing
down the rows of crops, hands clasped,

trying to outrun daylight.



Copyright © 2022 Despy Boutris All rights reserved
from Southern Indiana Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission

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