The cornstalks seem happy just standing there all summer.Until someone calls time money, rain adjusts the river,and shall we rotate the crops? My familyspoke Polish, came from farms. I’ve seenthe black-and-whites of haystacks and tried to guessif it was end of summer, and why are the farmers’ wiveswearing their pinafore aprons in the field?Sometimes, in an off-year, a single stalk of cornshoots up among the knee-high soybean.They call this a volunteer. What wants out of the pastwill come: something, someone, some-horse, somecrow, somewren. But I am nothingif not new world. As I bite a cold radish,place an iron key on the back of my neck tryingto halt a nose bleed, I curse the landscapeof my face, the lineage in its shape,the jawline like a beam or some similar part of a barn—mother’s father’s features from way backwhen farm was only an extension of continent,and the light of the world keeps going.