Land of Lincoln corn,
rows of cool and knee high in July,
rise between their leaves,
their green palms
in uniform prayer.
Feed corn fattens eunuch beef.
Seed corn grows sterile.
Come August ripe
the corn rows grow obscene,
drinking and exhaling in a crowded haze.
Soon, farmlands settle,
lightened by harvest…
the export of corn
by truck and train
to farmers
in Mexico
where Guadalupe tastes memories
of elote, of her own maize.
After Zapata
before NAFTA,
the kernels of cream
became grains of sun
for winter meals.
Her field now is a field
of whisk brooms
sweeping dust.
She buys her meal,
uniformed corn that
shoulders through the markets–
profuse, competitive,
from the Land of Lincoln.
Guadalupe daydreams
while sweeping
imagining the daydreams
of a Zapatista.
Support small farms and food security in Mexico! http://sunnu.org/en/
