cornfield

we never went in far.
my brother & in the late summer
walking on the winding cornfield roads 
took turns slipping between 
the stalks. these days
we don't talk as much as we should. 
i leave his message on read.
drive my car to a place 
where the sun doesn't have his teeth.
we go into the corn
even when the fields 
are wintering. growing nothing
but the fox foot prints & deer tracks.
fill our ears with husks & listen
for the sound of each other breathing.
i sometimes wish we would
have gone deeper. ran into 
the shaking belly of the field.
for whatever it is that they hide
all swollen august. there must be
some kind of organ. a spleen
or a lung. a place where all the rain
is going. i like to think that 
if we needed each other,
we would meet
in between the rows. light
making shadow boxes 
of our hands. once, when we 
were very small, he called for me
& i did not answer. i crouched
there in the mud & the earth.
i thought, "i could stay here
& become a creature." i finally
emerged. he wept & i held him,
saying, "i was just kidding."
i was not. i was so close to being gone.
then again, do we ever know
how close we are to any given edge?
i want to devour the animal corn
with him. i want to call him now
in the middle of the january night
& tell him, "let's go & pluck
the fields. there are always some
kernels in waiting."