Issac
He grew in corn,
an afterthought among the kernels,
feet planted in the rows
where the seed didn’t take.
He grew straight and green,
unbending in the summer heat—
a prayer to Missouri.
But corn is sown for the harvest
and does not speak.
What can come from the tongue
of a cob uncut for feed,
for processing into the thick syrup of our hunger,
or for sacrifice on a backyard brazier?
He speaks nothing but breeze
and fumes in his silence.
His leaves brown, turning husk.
Winter gone, left standing for frost,
he shakes his roots free; he walks.
Cody Slauson is a New England transplant to the Midwest who received his MA in Poetry Writing and a Certificate in the Teaching of Writing from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. As an adjunct, he teaches writing in campuses around the St. Louis area.
