After the Gleaners

I plucked the flowers sprouting from
your fingertips,
green, ripe for the taking,
those awkward stalks
you begged me take

into a jar I put them, onto
the sill they went,
each speaks in turn: I
was a night of sighs, and
I the lace of a cobweb
stretched against your hand,
voicing the insubstantial

and, after the gleaners,
she gathers what might yet
be found, the noise of the
combine harvester long gone,
only the birds for company

shining grains to hoard
against the future, held
hard in the fist, a
promise of bread

and your lands shall
be mine and I
shall be yours