Coulters split the land’s curdled

belly till the bones

disclosed redged

unseeded furrows, edges

burred; ard blades notched

like vertebrae

Farmers plotted

according to death

crops feasted on bone

marrow; barley was sown in eye

sockets, oats in the sciatic notch

Roots bedded in stromal 

cells; ligules forced

foramina. Harvest after 

harvest

grains swelled

to apostrophes

Worm tongues forgive

the plough’s harrowing 

symmetrical draft

The dead are practised speakers

who enunciate through buckled

rock sucked smooth

in the mouth’s rockery 

who mill flour to be laved and shaped

to bake consonants in the crust, 

vowels in the crumb 

who breathe spells through steam

curling from each torn farl.