Who knew you knew the story of corn

in your fifteen dollar lavender and lilac

floor length dress from Kohl’s that sweeps

across the floor of our one story ranch

style home and cinches just above your pregnant belly.

 

The old wive’s tell: take a piece of your hair,

string it through your engagement ring, hold

it over your ring finger. The first time it was still.

The second it swung back and forth. We gave

no name to the first proof of our love.

 

Thigh high by July you say of the small plants

in their orderly and innumerable rows.  The first leaf,

the flag of emergence, will eventually die. Senescence,

it’s called.