On the saltmarsh up in Ipswich, I sliced

a cattail, peeled off her brown velour

girdle. Her innards floated on the late

warm summer air. I made a wish

on her softness that I can’t tell anybody

and still hasn’t come true. The air thick

with hollyhock and oak leaves just 

beginning their turn to fall, beeswax,

sandalwood, the lowing of calves

at their weaning. I heard that brown

cattail flowers die by August and are all

male. By the time I released her, the sky

was variegated: green, gold, orange, red.

Today is the day of the first sheaf.

Already, people up here are twisting corn

husks with thin wire to hang, brewing sweet

meadow tea. An early frost in May nearly killed

the whole the blueberry crop on the hill—

they proved themselves hardy and grew fat 

with the humid summer, left a tinny, tart

aftertaste on the tongue. The cattail’s insides

floated as one thought over the saltmarsh,

hovered below the weakening sun. Did I say

that sound traveled differently up here too? 

I could hear steady slow hammering, metal

on metal, from the north, from the west.