Low, this body
humbled to its knees,
neck bent like a stalk of silver
bluestem by summer sun
or a breeze that sweeps across
the bayou and folds the wild
grasses upon themselves
until they feather the dirt—
their white inflorescence soiled.
This isn’t so much a metaphor
as where He brings you,
as what moves around you
when He becomes your wind,
your light. The grass doesn’t want
the dirt so much as it requires it
like your mouth full of earth
where anything might grow.
Matty Layne Glasgow is the author of deciduous qween (Red Hen Press, 2019), winner of the Benjamin Saltman Award. His poems and essays recently appear in or are forthcoming from AGNI, Copper Nickel, Ecotone, Kenyon Review, Queer Nature, Southeast Review, Strange Hymnal, Sugar House Review, and elsewhere. Matty is a Black Earth Institute Fellow for which he co-edited the “Strange Wests” issue of About Place Journal with Jasmine Elizabeth Smith. He holds a Ph.D. in Creative Writing and English Literature from the University of Utah and is an Assistant Professor of English at the College of Charleston where he currently serves as the CNF Editor for swamp pink.