the only cornfields i’ve encountered
were flea-ridden
probably big agged
and on the trip where i found out
my beloved was a rager
we loved july-high cornstalks
city people that we were
didn’t know what  longterm relationship
with fleas
we were forming
as we walked through
on the side of the road

surrounded by cornfields
i barricaded myself in our old
sunpatinaed
chalk-red F150
and honked the horn 
trying to alert someone
in the McDonald’s parking lot
to the danger
no one came
or called police
Iowa being so unafraid of white men
the horn finally gave way
i was left in silence
the only option to unlock the door
and continue
barricading myself next in a motel bathtub
making me late to see my prospective advisor
at the school in Michigan
that wanted to pay me to study there
feminist anthropology
curled up in a bathtub
i’m so sorry, it took me an hour to find parking

all these years later
I need a cornfield
cornsilk my mother threw out
cornsilk a powerhouse for organs
inflammation
the whole system
that’s broken in me
my synapses still afraid that growing corn
will bring fleas to my yard
irrational fear
given that i’ve irradicated fleas from the yard altogether
sulfuric wizard that i am

i think i’m ready for corn in the yard
but i dont come from starch people
so i have no idea when to plant or where they want to be
the corn seedlings i bought didn’t survive, fried in my east spring sun
what does that say about them surviving 
learning how to bring life in a yard
balancing the prospect of eating a ton of something i’ll have to pressure can
another pot
another storage problem
is the hurdle

and like most years
an illness that suboptimizes the 
timing
too late to plant this year
i guess?