• V •
The sick boy.
Locked in a vision
with his tongue stiff as a horn.
He sits with his back turned to the picture of the cornfield.
The bandage around his jaw hinting at embalming.
His glasses are thick like a diver’s. And everything is unanswered
and vehement like the telephone ringing in the dark.
But the picture behind him—a landscape that gives peace though the grain is a golden storm.
Sky like blueweed and drifting clouds. Beneath in the yellow surge
some white shirts are sailing: reapers—they cast no shadows.
There’s a man standing far across the field and he seems to be looking this way.
A broad hat darkens his face.
He seems to be observing the dark figure here in the room, perhaps to help.
Imperceptibly the picture has begun widening and opening behind the sick brooding
invalid. It sparks and pounds. Every grain is ablaze to rouse him!
The other—in the corn—gives a sign.
He has come close.
No one notices.