Another call and message left
while I stand at the stove,
waiting for the coffee, pretending
not to hear. Outside the window
a buck stands in the field, head cocked
like a telephone, all rapture and ear:
when I see him, the antlers
coming through harvest
that stretches ceaselessly
across the plain, it is not
unlike your hand
on my body when it gathered
another yield in the dark—
more like the locust, than the buck,
at the wheat’s throat, more
whittling it open, then coming
through—noise
low in the flesh,
in the field,
more waiting
for that ache
and after, echo
of the ache
in air.
Hannah Bonner
Hannah Bonner’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Oyster Boy Review, The Cellar Door, Asheville Poetry Review, and The North Carolina Literary Review.
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