By Brandon Kilbourne

Those fields were totally empty to me,
though in your universe, their tilled earth was where, like a seedling, boyhood was reared for manhood. Driving for aimless hours the backroads connecting
Duson, Breaux Bridge, and other small towns,
taking the most circuitous route possible to tour
the dealerships and view their newest tractors,
we would first visit the comic book store,
your five-minute concession for monthly
adventures of Darkhawk and Venom.

Those fields though stayed empty to me,
so you would point out your universe—
Look at the cows! Look at the hay!
—your finger’s thrust bringing into existence
the ilk of alfalfa, John Deere, sugar cane, and combines,
turkeys and deer opportunely in the open,
and everyday chevrons of geese gliding overhead,
while I preferred the inhabitants of the Marvel Universe—
thumbing through trading cards of Rhino, Stegron, and She-Hulk—
as daydreams of Tyrannosaurus roared from the Cretaceous.

And those fields remained empty to me, so you
once more pressed your universe upon me—
Look at the geese! Look at the geese!
—before seeding me in my boredom with salted words— Nigger, would you wake your ass up? You’re in
for a rude awakening! A rude awakening! —as we drove down a road like a fault line
dividing small family farms and their differing crops. And so those fields remain empty to me, their furrows forever
blighted by the mouthfuls of salt you sowed among their soil.

Originally from Louisiana, Brandon Kilbourne is a biologist and poet living in Berlin, Germany. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Poet Lore, Ecotone, Tahoma Literary Review, and elsewhere, with his work also being translated into Estonian. In 2021, he received a nomination for a Pushcart Prize from Ecotone.