Weeding
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Weeding
When you weed a field, bend over the long root suckers,the weeders moving in a line across the ridges,a stippled human stripe of inclined heads againstthe ordered rippling rows of mangels,then the world seems right and we are in our place.
When you refuse to weed and hang out with a friendunder the dreeping willow in the bend that is not ploughedwhere no grass grows over the stones and what is buried,you watch the workers easing themselves to night;its shadow keeps ahead of them as they cross.
Then you might think of sacrifice or the greater goodbut you don't, flirty with heat as heat leaves the day.And you separate, seeing things anew, filthywith possibility. It's too late now to join the weeding crew.And the willow laughs its long thin laugh at you. [End Page 502]
Siobhan Campbell's third full collection of poems is Cross-Talk published by Seren Books. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry, The Southern Review, Crab Orchard Review, Magma, and Agenda. Founder of the Military Writing Network, she works with veteran writers as well as distance students in the MFA in Creative Writing Program at Kingston University. She lives in Washington, D. C.
