Rasp
The heat rises in distorted gold
waves around fire
but without fire,
shimmering, twisting
anything seen through it.
The heat rises, rasping
the air it rises through,
scuffing the surface,
if the air has a surface.
The tall summer
field is the keeper
of secrets. Lie down
and forget your body, forgive
your body its bad cradle,
its brokenness.
Lie down and listen
to the rasp, to heat sweep
the pale, dry grass as if
it were your own
breathing, as if the field
you’ve pressed your shape into
is a broom in reverse,
a broom being
swept by the wind.
Copyright © 2017 by Maggie Smith. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 13, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.
“‘Rasp’ began as an attempt to articulate a sensory experience: the combination of the blur of heat in the air and the sound of wind moving through—across?—tall, dry grass. As I wrote, it struck me that the dry summer fields are broom-like, the grass wheat-colored and papery, so there’s a play on the idea of ‘windswept.’ The air seems to have so much body and texture in the heat, as if it has a surface that can be seen, felt, even broken.”
—Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith is the author of Good Bones (Tupelo Press, 2017), The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison (Tupelo Press, 2015), and Lamp of the Body (Red Hen Press, 2005).