Vibrates

The theory involves something vibrating,
ignoring the tease of whatever-it-now-
-means, and it involves wine-avoidance 
strategies and do-not-order-those-burgers 
methods passed down from a man who 
watched me sweat and did not even once 
look away. When you are hungry, reach for 
an apple, a glass of water, an apple, water.
The theory involves even more water, lots 
and lots of water. A glass should always be: 
full, the thing I loved about the fields
as you described them when I moved away.
When you said, what do you miss, it was
them. It was how mowing never seemed
to deplete them. How the sparrows always
buried their nests and so foolishly hoped,
like we were taught to hope, that somehow
the bailer would not come. The theory
was that a glass, a sip, should not be needed,
but the needing was so necessary to me.
I have never been lonely in a field.
I don’t think I have been thirsty in a field.
All of the theories of sitting in cold grass
didn’t teach me how to be here. Vibrating
says the clothes are done. Vibrating says
a friend has called. Vibrating asks, why
are you still drinking cheap wine? Can you
quit? Can you call sometimes? Call me
later. I won’t. My feet ache on this pavement.
Every time I try to walk on the small patches
of grass, they disappear into brick, more brick.
The first time I heard crickets, it all sounded
artificial. Sprinklers rose from the ground
and sprayed the chirpings. More noise.
I remember irrigating the fields by the garden;
the labor always equaled the result. The closest 
thing to crickets, where I’m from, is a bird chirp,
quick, singular, more prayer than psalm. 
Once they’ve found each other, in a crabapple tree,
they sing and sing, and it vibrates the ground.

ξ

Eran Eads is beginning Performance Studies at University of Maryland. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa and teaches writing at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and University of Maryland Global Campus. His poems have appeared in Juked, Berkeley Poetry Review, and SOFTBLOW; his chapbook, fat, was released from Atomic Theory Micro Press. Check out his Instagram or Twitter and other social things @eraneads.