Rose & Thorn Journal - Winter 2011
Rebecca Schumejda is the author of Falling Forward, a full-length collection of poems (sunnyoutside, 2009), The Map of Our Garden (verve bath, 2009), Dream Big Work Harder (sunnyoutside press 2006), The Tear Duct of the Storm (Green Bean Press, 2001), and the poem "Logic" on a postcard (sunnyoutside). She received her MA in Poetics and Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, and her BA in English and Creative Writing from SUNY New Paltz. She lives in New York's Hudson Valley with her husband and daughter. Visit her at rebeccaschumejda.
Rebecca Schumejda
Husks
After the wind snaps the cornstalks,
you hold my hand on the back porch,
we watch the storm’s lungs expand
and contract like wanting and waiting
and wanting and I think about the corn
as if they were newborns dropped
on their soft skulls and abandoned.
You push your shoulder into my face,
a manly way of passing me a tissue.
The thunder isn’t a thank you or an apology.
When the rain stops, we will pick up
the pieces, rinse them off, tear off the husks,
and place each ear into boiling water
one at a time. We will slather
them with butter, cracked black pepper
and sea salt. You will tell me they taste
like the Minnesota of your childhood—
and having never been there,
I will hate what I have seen:
your mother’s gaudy costume jewelry
and the way she only calls when she needs.
Husks
After the wind snaps the cornstalks,
you hold my hand on the back porch,
we watch the storm’s lungs expand
and contract like wanting and waiting
and wanting and I think about the corn
as if they were newborns dropped
on their soft skulls and abandoned.
You push your shoulder into my face,
a manly way of passing me a tissue.
The thunder isn’t a thank you or an apology.
When the rain stops, we will pick up
the pieces, rinse them off, tear off the husks,
and place each ear into boiling water
one at a time. We will slather
them with butter, cracked black pepper
and sea salt. You will tell me they taste
like the Minnesota of your childhood—
and having never been there,
I will hate what I have seen:
your mother’s gaudy costume jewelry
and the way she only calls when she needs.
