“Field Dance” was previously published in the 2019 collection This White Nest (Quattro Books)
August fields – a swoop of ballroom style.
Wind-hiked skirt-skirls dip, sashay
enticing us to drive the longer way
looped with grid-road sashes every mile.
Closer, the field becomes a veil of sound
unseamed, woven through with locust din
patterning its rippled satin skin.
I move to join the waltz, to don its filmy gown.
But stalks go at my ankles with insistent bites
mean and stubble-mouthed. Earthy furrows
foil my feet, the field compounds the sorrow
with gopher holes to trip me up mid-flight.
Earth clods collapse to clay dust. In the buzz
dirt won’t dance, that’s just not what it does.
Frances Boyle (she/her) is a Canadian writer who lives in Ottawa. She is the author of three poetry collections, a novella and an award-winning short story collection. Recent and forthcoming publications include The Fiddlehead, The New Quarterly, Dreich, Thimble Lit and Consilience.
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