Sea-green eyes, skin
the color of dust, I
come from a long line of fire
signs. We seed
the open field
in our mind, before
the soil has seen
a single harrow
whose moon cold metal
teeth drag root,
stone and grass up by the hair
to make the soil finer,
fit for this
seed. Generation after generation
we have gotten as far as the fantasy
and no farther. I grow up thinking
marriage is a field. I balk at
the barrenness of that
field and balk, also, at the plow.
My shoulders are slight.
Hands, then, be strong:
lower the beam my love has made
easy.
|||
Julia Guez is the author of In an Invisible Glass Case Which Is Also a Frame (Four Way Books, 2019). Her poetry, prose and translations have appeared in Poetry, Guernica, The Guardian, Kenyon Review, PEN Poetry Series and the Brooklyn Rail. Four Way Books will be releasing her next book, The Certain Body, in 2022. Guez teaches creative writing at Rutgers. She also serves as the senior managing director of program design and implementation at Teach For America New York. Guez lives in Brooklyn and online at www.juliaguez.net. (PHOTO BY WESLEY MANN)
Guez has previously had her work published in TLR’s Game Theory issue.
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