we once took a field trip

to a corn field. the big yellow bus pulled up
& opened its doors just to thrust us out
into the crowd of stalks. none of us 
had names yet-- just numbers from 1-20.
we took off our shoes on the side of the road.
me & another girl noticed we were wearing
the same white shoes with a tiny flower
on the toe. i wondered what this might mean
& she darted into the thickness before 
i could ask her why she was wearing white shoes--
i had been wearing them to prove how careful
i could work--to get ready for a sacrament 
without a title. this was a giant corn field--
no this was a monstrous cornfield no this was 
a mammoth corn field-- practically a forest.
the teachers had run away so there was
no one to ask questions to. i wanted to know
when they harvested a field like this 
& how the corn grew as big as our forearms.
the teachers were all made of silk or glass
& we didn't need them. there was one teacher
who turned into a wind chime & the whole class
wept but i thought it was happy. in the field 
i wondered if we were all going 
to make it out-- if maybe this trip 
was meant to leave some of us in the soft earth.
i felt bodies pass mine. i felt fingers 
or was that the thin green leaves of corn?
i felt hair or was that the hair 
off each ear? there is no difference 
in moments like this between a child's body
& a corn stalk. bare feet in mug.
a scheme of foot prints. the laughter-screams--
unsure if we're scared or enthralled.
we need a church to kneel in.
we need a television bursting with 
flowers. where is the souvenir shop? 
we needed something to take home to prove
we were all here in a corn field.
some others find there way out but 
i don't want to leave. i want to stay here
& talk more to the sun swelling above us.
i want to ask what it eats & if the clouds
are really the plump ghosts of animals 
or just water like the teachers say.
i slam into another student & my head throbs
from the collision. i can't find them & hope
they're okay. i briefly wondered if that was
actually myself-- if all the children were
mirrors of me all sprinting 
in the freshness-- all hungry for yellow--
all watching the sun turn into a tangerine.
i could peel the skin off & find 
those sweet citrus lobes like the chambers 
of an alien heart. i could live in the field 
& never have to sit in a desk again.
to this day i think they took us to the field
to be cruel--to show us how free we could life
if we didn't have to go & be orderly humans
each day. in the years that followed each time
someone would ask what i wanted to be when 
i grew up i would suppress the urge to say
corn stalk corn stalk corn stalk.