Two new poems from this season

A Frost On Late Harvest

The October backfield of soybeans is brown and wasted away, row after row of sweet corn, Indian corn stalks bent over with the dead weight of rotted ears like old folks with bad backs. Fruit trees destroyed this far from August; apples in decay at the last days of November chill, pears near frozen. There’s a frost on the late harvest. Milk cows undernourished, chickens with nearly no feed. Inside the farmer’s wife is at rest in recovery. Her husband seated bedside playing nurse, reading poetry aloud, Wordsworth, her favorite this far past autumn.