Golden Grass

Amanda J. Crawford

I remember the golden grass under our blanket and the way

the light made the withered blades and our bold young flesh

glow in the unparalleled brightness of autumn just before

sunset. Naked and exposed in the rustling breeze, pressed

against each other, the blanket, the earth. My head on his bird

chest listening to the sound of his breath below and swallows

above as my gaze fell down the slouching horizon:

Down, to the line of trees sequestering this square of fallow field;

to the blanched stalks of corn beyond that jut upward with broken

arms, robbed of swaddled kernels; to the lonely home of a timid girl

with whom my love would soon betray me and the duo of chestnuts

grazing in her yard; to the crooked banks of Antietam Creek, where

the next thunderstorm would erase traces of parties spiked with

my parents’ vodka on the floodplain.

I remember golden grass, the glow of our flesh before

sunset came and stole the warmth, and the breeze

turned crisp and supper called, and we put on our clothes

and took our blanket, leaving behind things we would only miss

decades later.