In my field skipped by the rains Deemed too wretched to know the world of green Declared to know only of beige Doomed to wilt inevitably beneath the scorch My stalks danced ceremoniously to the wind’s calling— the same voice that machined the turn of the key in the dungeon where I lay comatose, black a trio: ceiling, window, and floor. Humming like Rapunzel, I kept close the armyworm that bored deep within me, clutched it like a winter blanket. Before light named it, I did not. The voice showed me the way— and the way was vertical. Now my roots, tugged skyward, almost yield to that red, rushing pull that refuses the earth’s steady horizontal Almost untethered, my leaves threaten departure, leaving stalks remembering flowers.