On the first day of spring
we went down to the field and we fucked. It was that simple. There was the scent of grass and also maybe the clouds, which I ruefully imagined smelled not of new rain but something older, tinged with copper, the lingering aftertaste of river water that’s okay but not great to drink, which we of course had drunk despite the warnings. When you swallowed, I looked away. I remained thirsty, hating the body I wore for sweating, loving the clothes I wore for loosening, and wishing we had been anywhere but there. What is it about open spaces that outs me? I can’t place it. I know I am bipedal and taller than most grasses. I am not afraid of the void of a hawk above. I am consenting to the simplicity of fucking in a field. Our bodies made new shapes out of the grass, flattening it, the insects tangled within it introduced to new concepts like weight and shade and salt. Concepts I, too, was estranged from until you. But they are here to help ground me. Now here’s a fact, not a concept: a field can be cut in half with a river. A mountain, too, can be worn down by the water. What these geographies do to change their appearance is accept the slow work of everything on the outside. A mountain has a centre. A river has an origin. I wanted to be as fluid and whole as both.
Terrence Abrahams lives and writes quietly in Toronto. His work has appeared in the Puritan, Peach Mag, Hobart Pulp, Cartridge Lit, and many gendered mothers, among others. He has a MA degree and two poetry chapbooks forthcoming in 2019.
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