Aimee Nezhukumatathil - The Two Times I Loved You The Most On A Farm

after Dorothea Grossman

 

It was your idea to teach me how to sleep

under the stars       how to hold a gun      how

to shoot it in the air              and firework it

    across the setting sun          a silver dragonfly

with a singular purpose:     to hunt

and snap        its mouth around          the sweetest bee—

pluck it right out of the air—

I didn’t know                      love could be so loud.

 

And once, the fields                        of soybean and mice

              became ...