Basic Definitions for Living on This Land

Tornado

When a ship is lost on land, it will make its own wind to get home.

Cornfield

In Kindergarten we taught our bodies how to get in lines. I lost count of the sunburns, but those bodies learned how to be dry. We harvested our hearts for their water, so the other would not be so thirsty. Now, we bow low to the earth. Dirt fills the gaps inside us.

River

This is no way to leave, she said. All the sticks inside me already went that way, he said. Here, take my sticks, she said, breaking off a rib and dropping it inside him. She watched it drift toward Louisiana and disappear. She broke off another, and he didn’t have the heart to stop her.

Fence

Because I cannot separate my horses from yours. Because they whinny over the wire.