Bluffton University

In Season

by Sara Dudo

Spring rain skates 
down 
           into weed beds we 
           pluck on pebble-stressed kneecaps,

airing out rain shoes in bare feet,
we whisper to bacopa flowers while 
showering them; they’ve grown
comfortable in their nakedness.

My father tells me I am overanalyzing, but when I learn of the wage gap, I scrape my knee on the farmtruck fender and bring the blood to my lips; even I begin to taste how it costs less.

Evenings the cob-webbing bulb lights
clink on in the aisles.                                      

Thin-threaded brittle white roots
of flower flats cling to our shirts,
shins black from truck-bed kneeling.

We share slices of sweaty apple,
airing out our words under the oak tree,
heave unwanted onions of our sandwiches 
to the crows.

Thomas always reminds me, his tongue cutting through his Pall Mall breath, that I’d be his girlfriend if only he was young again. They all like to comment on my not minding getting dirty, the sexy in my innocence.

It does not matter that my blood was cultivated
for this climate, for this association with the sun-

my throat is to issue no orders,
but to take on water

the way Thomas waters the pansies:
drowning them because he wants to give 
life.

I want to feel the way the skin of a man’s cheek bends and undulates at the impact of my knuckles after he offers a shopping cart back to Katie and grabs at her wrists like they’re the end of August, worn out and ready to give in to fall.

Waterboarded is old news,

but May howls in the pitch of women
given to cloud at all these men
walking around with pride just                               

           jutting out their necks,

In garbled phrases,
they demand we
strengthen our thin,
brittle,
weakly-rooted bodies,

and hands on our heads 
in pools they trim
precise
bouquets out of us.