Bring she corn at sunset, out by the lowland lake, there near Baton Rouge, July’s moon, has done itself forsake. Elisabeth you brought me to heat that takes the land, and brings forth such a harvest, the corn husk seem to dance. My body lies in rich soil, the dirt it looks so black, it comes from dead leaves dyeing, an inward seas shellac. What of light that’s missing, the mist it rolls in waves, the Louisiana bottom, weaves with spells of lace. Elizabeth comes she forward, a woman as a wraith, and in this time of festival she ask me to come take. We’ll bath among the fire flies, in the pond out back, and make love to the ghost lights, that cross the great set back.

We travel in her Civic, the year of eighty-nine, and go up through New Orleans, the devil makes us blind. For all we see is beauty, Elizabeth and I, we travel to her cousins to cut the corn with scythes. The farm it sits among trees so low, the road so wide, and there within a mystery, a festival bastilles a shrine. Some men they wear all cotton, their robes of starch and white, there brown faces leery of the boy I am outside. It is the fires all burning, those fires that touch gray sky, all day there is a harvest, and corn we eat that night. There are at times sweet children, those that move so quiet, and disappear at sunset, their faces shining bright. Oh yes my sweet, sweet Betsy, Elizabeth of night, your black dress looks alluring, its sway, it cuts so tight.

For twenty hours of memory, a lifetime of my mind, I dance in Louisiana, with Elizabeth of night, we watch and bath in corn husk our bodies in oily rite, and when the sun comes shining, we sleep in morning light. The corn rows are disjointed, July’s heat burns out with a cry, in Louisiana proper, a face it turns to be out mine, and makes its way so slowly, from such a lovely night. A belle with black hair tresses, a woman’s eyes of tan, her dress torn from shoulders, her lips upon this man. Her right hand holds a corn husk that goes beyond my back, and within its wave, I’m willing to make my way on back.

Elisabeth you brought me to heat that takes the land, and brings forth such a harvest, the corn husk seem to dance. – 03.25.2015 – דָּנִיֵּאל