Strawberry Pickers, Nauvoo, and: Triticum Durum

Abstract

Strawberry Pickers, Nauvoo, and: Triticum Durum Todd Smith (bio) Strawberry Pickers, Nauvoo Eleven thousand years ago the lastglacier scraped through this field. Transmuted by the new sun, struckdumb with fear. When Joseph Smith fell laughing to his knees before a pillarof fire, his tongue swelling, his father descended and spoke in a voice as coldas the risen Sangamon Creek, saying go home. Past noon, this basin of dirtriddled with thick bloodless cracks. A crop duster buzzes low overheadto cough its toxic rain like a blessing toward the dark corduroy of soybeansto the west. Paint huffers straighten on knee pads cut from vulcanized tiresand their pink-stained hands slow for half a beat. Through the propped backdoor of the school bus, popular music washes over them, saying nothingthey haven't heard somewhere before. [End Page 79] Triticum Durum Durum wheat's tallerthis summer, or elsethe Ropp widow is shrinking. She neverkicks the feral catanymore, just glares down at her sandals,their dermis of mudgrowing one unfelt layer more real withevery step. Frowningto remember words next to the burned-outbarn, she stops to spita hex at the half- bus, twice daily puffof fumes and specialchildren. As soon as the combine turns eastfor Minot—bin-driedgrain settling yet in folded steel—she willfollow its raw voice.The hardest of wheats, Triticum durum,she will tire and seepunsaved and unspool. [End Page 80] Todd Smith Todd Smith's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in River Styx, Palette Poetry, Barrow Street, North American Review, Crab Orchard Review, and elsewhere. He received Frontier Poetry's Award for New Poets and was a semi-finalist in the 2018 Discovery/Boston Review Poetry Contest. Copyright © 2018 University of Nebraska Press