evolutionary wheat
heather, she shades her
stalks about me, her wheaten arms,
rustling with a fertility forgotten in
genetic evolution; they say
our love emerged from the brushfires of
natural selection, weeding enough so as
to avoid overgrowth. in prehistoric times,
we would exist as extra labor without
added reproduction.
she fans my burning breath while we
lie under the wind-thrown shadows of
the porchside trees; her long, ripe
body, bursting with seed, subdues the
fright of the combines; by divining
water, her gentle touch understands
the ways to elicit liquid, flowing smoothly,
voluminously; a catalyst of good irrigation.
she tickles me with her hair-fine
bristles, whispering "hayfever hayfever" as if
inducing allergy; but we both giggle, knowing
if she pressed her head full against my body, soft
sweet, i would lick the grains from her hair. and we
would embrace like persephone and her lover, joyously.
... on the dark half, six months of the year, she
leaves her homeland to live with her husband
mark, the farmer who reaps the yearly harvest with her; then,
autumn and winter exist in my heart, watching her seeds
shaken and shaken again. as they fall, he grinds
them in a mortar and makes her into flour, his
livelihood. sweet heather, i would wrest
you away, but you have eaten the pomegranate seeds of
marriage; i can only cry like a first bridesmaid, watching
you given away. although in time, you must return, re-emerge,
for your season is that of eternity summer winter
spring fall — golden wheat, encapsulating
your radiant energy.
the entomologists say that ants and bees
have evolved similarly, with a worker class which
struggles to sustain itself, all females. like us, too,
these insects are often ignited by the intense heat of
magnifying-glass eyes.