Nathan Lipps
FIELD WORK

He wakes back bent into a kind of platform
for what is meant to be goodness.

Heat of the sun in the soil near his face.

Imagine wind noticing itself.
That kind of silence

each morning. Across the field a body
of another, watching.

What Hegel said about two souls.
Each holding a seed

in their loose fists. Terrified
to let go, knowing the need

to sow. To join that patch-work quilt
landscape to something.

Receiving the fly-over-fuck-you
gift of nothing, despite the effort.

Back to bed, the soil cooling.
Again, again.

Terrified of claiming.
Of being claimed.

---

Nathan Lipps lives in the Midwest where he teaches English courses. His work has been published in the Best New Poets, BOAAT, Colorado Review, Third Coast, and elsewhere.

Image credit: Samuel Myles on Unsplash

Read more from Cleaver Magazine’s Issue #28.