Corn Love

I asked one of my former writing professors, Michael Martone, for a challenge.  He's always reminded me a little of David Lynch in that he's Midwestern, he's often cryptic, and he's obsessed with corn.  And he's someone I've learned a lot from!  He was an encouraging teacher who championed my zaniness in class, and I'll always appreciate that.

And he has his own Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_A._Martone

At any rate, his challenge for me was "the sex life of corn."  It was a puzzler, and props to Alana Baldwin (featured in a previous post) who helped me edit this poem by cutting it in half, putting the beginning at the end, and cutting out a stanza that featured the phrase "inert within its husk."

So here we go:


Corn Love

As its husk loosens, Corn enjoys
glossy magazine pics of barbecues...

...sauce delirious, pepper shimmering.