Under this Iowa sky,
rain falls in slits around us

the glittering eyelashes of angels
who pray at god’s cloud-marbled floors.

My breath is a fist of loose
wind falling away to

scared I will run out. & mother weeps
at the wheel, her hips shaking

with the car’s rumbling. We drive to the end
of the field, the tear

of the page full of corn lifting into the sky’s
open mouth. Exhausted,

we lay in the grass
its sweet sticky sweat. A lacy

grasshopper waxes by
our ear &

it breaks us, that bird breaks
through the glass of us

I try to catch its
beats spilling down my arms.

Then corn heads unfurl
toward the sky

in yellow flames.