Erin Case, Yin (collage)

The fields that fall
were honey and light
filtered through white
dove skies, a handful
of coyote holes, tracks
laid down by deer
and bobcats in the clay flats
by the stream, here
where you said you saw,
you swear, a woman
on the rock bluff, naked,
tied, and gagged.
Afterward, the flight back
and through the pasture,
your mother out of breath,
both of you parting
the wiregrass and ragweed,
running down the path
beneath the hickories,
and no one there,
not even the sedge
flattened from where
a body could have lain.
I believe you when you say
you saw children facedown
in the Mekong,
how the water turned
blush at your boot tips,
the wind at your back
hot with dust and the taste
of iron rotting in your mouth.
If it proves anything,
you can have me
by the swimming hole.
You can tie a rope
around my throat
and call me no better
than the stray
you found trembling

in a trash heap on the edge
of the ferny jungle.
If there was a woman
there, then we are
the same. Here,
where rat snakes tunnel
the ryegrass,
where purslane and ivy
come spilling
from the trees like red
gums through the night’s bright
and whetted teeth.


Kate Gaskin