Rice Field Poem by peauladd huy

If you made yourself disappear
deep in the green rice field, it’s not hard to imagine
you can hear the grain churning
milky sap into each solid seed,
the grassy blades whispering, giving in to the winds
and weights of the dragonflies, bending

farther from the sun. Hidden from eyesight,
on the dirt division between the rice fields, sunning frogs
belly-plop into the water, erupting
like raindrops tearing up the face of the pond.
The snails uncap their suction-
cupped mouths, letting go
as ankle-deep water rushes up,

ripple after ripple. You tell yourself to hold still.
Crouch low, stay hidden
because you’ve been eating stolen rice.

Bodies fall
in a sudden tackle, wrapped up like wriggling eels
tearing through mud. Slip, slap, up the muddy water; limbs writhing,
pinned down. Three against one
holding one helpless
child too shaken to come out. Too stunned,
too mesmerized by the struggle.

Afterward, your ears drum
the beating like a herd of hooves
stampeding out a snake. Crack,
crack, crunch, crunch like brittle twigs,
like hooves on bones,
like hooves shattering a brain, then you know
you’ll never see a rice field without feeling fragile
bone cracked lifeless
somewhere amid the emerald vastness.