RED WHEAT: MONTANA

There is a kind of weeping so inconsolable

It occasions only silence

Just as there is a kind of silence so horrible it requires weeping

Naked at the tall bedroom mirror she had shorn in piles

The magnificent red hair I had always loved

The blanket of curls I would pull over my body at night

A ragged field of red wheat clipped & bundled at harvest

& as I stood in the doorway she turned & said

Next week they said next week the treatments will “commence”

& in that pause I saw the sneer of a smile begin

As she said but today you & I will go & introduce ourselves

At Madame Récamier’s Modern House of Wigs