The Wheat Field by Matthew Gellman

i.

I came to the wheat field
to look for my sister
but my sister was not there
there was only sunlight
fanning the silence
and getting all over
the things that it owned
and the taste of the sunlight
the taste a white linen
dress pulled over my head
and each time I turn
to look closer at myself
I turn from myself.

ii.

As a girl my mother
didn’t like to dance.
At night, she walked
around those blocks
of row-homes standing
like graves in soil,
avoiding the gymnasium.
She reached a parking lot
overgrown with grass
where she could lie down,
unflooded by headlights.
Could think. Could look
at the imperfect animal
stillness of every star.

iii.

At the school dance I stood
almost ghost at the edge
of the purple lights.
Then, being driven home,
words were heavy-footed
and the field almost broken
by blizzard. But I still thought
I could point out the few soft crops
still cowering in their stalks,
my face always looking
for something beating inside
what was hardly there.

iv.

I come to the wheat field
to look for my sister
but my sister is not here
my sister is somewhere
asleep in the sun inside her;
my sister lives only inside.
She will never see this night
will not find me watching
these airplanes disappear.
I don’t know where they’re going
but I watch them go.

Matthew Gellman lives in New York City and holds an MFA from Columbia University. His poems are featured in Poetry Northwest, Narrative, The Common, Passages North, Ninth Letter, Lambda Literary’s Poetry Spotlight, the Missouri Review and elsewhere. He currently teaches at Hunter College and the Fashion Institute of Technology.