In the Grass

—I’m going to castrate Gordon,
announces Jennifer. A pocketknife
looks like a can opener against
her freckles, white straw hat,
polka dot sundress.
—I’m going to do it,
she tells us, laughing with the knife
she should be using to slice
a picnic apple.
Gordon pauses his pantomimed grimace
and stares at her white teeth.
No one talks.
And then the blade flashes
in the sun as she drops it.
And Jennifer is straddling Gordon’s chest
and laughing and he is laughing
and touching her thigh under her sundress
and she is running her hands along his ribs.

And we don’t know where
the knife has gone.

Artist’s Statement

I wrote this poem in the summer of 2006. Several other writers and I decided to use photographs as prompts for a spontaneous writing exercise, and I picked a photo by Severin Koller of young people at a picnic.

At the time, I was slowly getting a better grasp of writing poetry, and when I wrote this poem, I felt I had reached a level thematically and in images and language that I hadn’t before. The premise of “just an exercise” allowed me to write without inhibition. When I brought it to a workshop later, I was surprised by how unsettled it made the male participants! Despite this, I always look at In the Grass with affection; it signaled a step forward in my learning process