This is the male.
These are the wild skirts flying
and here is the sweet dark daughter
who passed between those
who were currents of each other’s love.
She sleeps
in milky sweetness. She is the stranger
who comes from a remote land, another time
where sky and earth are lovers always
for the first time each day,
where crops begin to stand
amid brown dry husks, to rise straight
and certain as old people with yellowed hair
who carry medicines,
the corn song,
the hot barefoot dance
that burns your feet
but you can’t stop
trading gifts
with the land,
putting your love in the ground
so that after the long sleep of seeds
all things will grow
and the plants who climb into this world
will find it green and alive.