Love Poem for Scarecrow
BY KATHLEEN RADIGAN
Kissing you feels like leaves.
Fall is near. I’m not sure what gust
sent you here, your mouth
like something buttoned and unbuttoned
with care.
You hang over the field rolled flat as dough,
straw soft, hungry for hay.
Round noon the crows fly away.
See them tunneling
over the grass- bent
belly dance in the sun glow.
(You can’t coax back a crow.)
Kissing you feels like a street-dance.
Remember the day I carried you off your post
and down a steep hill yawning green? I went swimming
in the river while you dipped your hay feet, thinking
all the thoughts that keep you up nights in the corn rows,
black eyes bolted open.
My favorite nights were the ones I kissed your hands
where they swung in the starched air.
You were a maestro conducting the orchestra of everything.
In the distance clouds and bullfrogs learned to spell their names.
People clapped their hands in farmhouses and the crows flew home.
