BPR 51 | 2024
In the Silo
I was the one they chose for this—
small, thin, a girl
dreaming of a man’s hands,
not this colossal white cylinder they dropped
me into, promising I wouldn’t die,
training me to climb the outside ladder
and jump down to the moist
primeval grass like the start of life.
It was for the cow feed in winter
after we bucked hay bales in strict
stacks in the barn, this stamping
of jade-green grass into the density
of cement within the round sanctuary dark
as July heat, and so around and
around I stomped with white sneakers
no sound, no wind, just
smashing the sweet grass, my voice
ostinato in the emptiness, damp and cold
as the farmer dumped load after load
from the field asking me to walk in circles
as prisoners in isolation must do
when the guards tell them it is the hour
of exercise, time for release to the air
of the living. Time for daylight and bribes.