it's dying I said and turned back around

but it was so sprightly yesterday flapping its wings

well then maybe it's mating I said

mating and dying

just a creature like any other creature

I read a book I didn't care about
something about ideology and the language of reproduction

this book said it was wrong to say that a woman grows a fetus
(as a field might grow crops for the farmer)

but I'm a farmer I said
(I wasn't willing to hand over my experience to anything that told me it wasn't real)

the book said we should say instead the woman creates a child
(as she might create a text)

I didn't create anything

it had nothing to do with my will

I used to think fallow spaces were fertile spaces

when I was angry as a girl

I would run away to the fields and pull up by the roots whatever things were growing wild

I would bring them back to my room to sit in a bucket of water and rot

fresh flowers

fallow means something else now

before it was abundance

escape

finding a new place

a fallow place
a place that runs on its own energy

a place that sits in its own quiet and screams in its own noise

a fallow thing
a thing with a life of its own