Susannah Lawrence

Counternarrative

In a field
I am the absence
of field
                                                -Mark Strand

in this field
we, too, are field
a fine silt of us
settles down
with every step
each exhale
a mist of self
each inhale
a sip of pollen
pheromone of bee
attar of vole

here we are—
unamplified,
on view
under a wilder sky
than we planned
visible from all
directions

under foot
nests lie
hidden cradle
the soon-to-be
airborne
innocent of intent
except to be bird

hard to hide
in a field we’d
have to snake-belly
through grass
exuberance
of damp clover
ragged robin
bedstraw—
let our faces be
freckled with petals
let our bodies
be stained 

even then
a crow a jay
might see us
flag our passage
better perhaps
to stand, be
surrounded

by what’s become of us
by what we’ve got coming

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Susannah Lawrence lives in northwest Connecticut. She is the author of a full-length collection, Just Above the Bone (Antrim House Books, 2016).  Her work has appeared in The Comstock Review, The Cortland Review, The Connecticut River Revies, The Ekphrastic Review, Green Hills Literary Lantern, The MacGuffin, Nimrod, Poet Lore and the anthology, Waking Up to the Earth.