Late

I'll leave you
in late afternoon
with light slanting
away over hilltops
and grass growing
cool and dark.

You were not
the halo encircling
my madonna face
after all,

just another baby
turning in against my breast.
There's no food of me left,

just a shuck of cornsilk
straggled from the last ears
of a late harvest.

Oh but how the severed cord
bleeds a vacancy, bright
red and wetly shining
through these dry years.