They sell dried yellow corn in
fifty cent brown paper sacks
taken past the concrete embankment
on down to fowl pondside, where
goose beaks bicker on
my corn cup palms,
hard plastic tong mouths of need
pinching kernels, me.
I, five, am flushed with an eminent
sense of importance.
We kids learn on these educational trips.
My grain-grown flock would do
anything for cheap gold
magic beans. And I
made them eat off my shoes.
Learn, and repeat.
Back home, my father
would dangle Circus Peanuts
over my head, saying
“Dance like a dog.”
