Fence alarm cried through the evening Tree down on the wire I left the screen still glowing Rolled the tractor through the wild June twenty-eighth was fading Sunset low and red At eight thirty-nine I stopped her And stood up and lost my head One minute held its finger To the mouth of everything The camera kept on watching What my body could not keep The camera saw me falling But it couldn’t call my name The night laid down beside me And the field stayed just the same Then morning burned above me Till Mama crossed the frame I was still there breathing In the field’s exchange Face down in the summer Skin blistered by the light Five hours under sunrise After all that empty night She found me where I vanished Where the grass had held me still Threw shade across my body While the sirens climbed the hill No villain stood above me No hand I could accuse Just dirt beneath the question And a sky too bright and blue The white lights took my story Piece by piece and vein by vein They named the cause uncertain But they measured all the pain A cast around the breaking A concussion in my name I paid in blood and daylight For the field’s exchange Five days under ceiling tiles With monitors for stars Needles, notes, and strangers Counting damage into charts Cardio and neuro Questions waiting in a line Trying to find the first domino That stole that minute mine Was it sugar, heat, or pressure Was it something in my chest The answer stayed behind me Where the tractor came to rest Then Mama made the phone call With terror in her tone Said critical condition And she should not be alone Somewhere far from Tennessee Those words broke through command In three days in the morning I could hold my husband’s hand I would not have paid it Not in bone, nor blood, nor flame I would not have chosen Critical beside my name But that word crossed the ocean And it broke his orders’ chains I hate the price it asked me But he came home through the exchange The field took nineteen hours And left questions in their place But it did not get to keep me From the arms I needed safe Not worth the price. But I know what came home.
