You tell me it began with the word mine. Once

you give a name to something it starts

to be. After we’d made

mine it was easy for words like us and

them to follow. This separated us, so we tried

the word want in our mouths

until it tasted like need, until our tongues turned

it to take. Now, water is soft on the road. Little air

bubbles make a world of it and the sky is eaten

up. You breathe light

and quick. You watch. The miles

of roads. The fields. The ditches of rotting

and regrowth, of cycles all alone. Corn

in rows, a faceless army. We tell ourselves

they are all like this: enemy is not a word

with a name or a family. At home, the live

oak dips its branches back in the earth, a child

playing soldier, arms pulled inside shirt

as though blown off. When you speak

the ground waits for your words

like rain. The world teaches

us about lying and I am lying

in the grass, skin against the sharp,

beheaded blades, wondering how

and when hurt became

another type of language.