9
In my dream, leaves crack underfoot like roasted chicken skin as I walk up on a crowd. Children chase balloons that are tied to their wrists. Nobody
is blotted out in black, everyone cradles plastic plates. When I ask if there's a funeral, the people move aside.
"There's plenty," one says. "Our crop's come in."
Straight out of the ground is a new batch of corn, blue, like teeth after a slushie. There's a trellis with peas, heirloom tomatoes with lumpy, splotched
sides. A woman examines a dripping watermelon before handing it to me. "It's ripe," she says. "I don't know if it's sweet."
Detroit Publishing Company
Detroit, 1903-1904
"Melon field, California"