cutter

The cutter comes late morning.

Swathing wave of corn-kissed sun trembling a mile long outside our window. Glassy stares and the blood-red threshing circle of metalled teeth grinds slowly to place.

I watch, camera cocked and he doffs his cap, implacable in silhouette against the noon. And then!!! The mettageisen furies unleashed, digging deep to the dirt cloud swirls. Their heads fall sullen to the ground, row upon row upon row. Falling. Their seed spills rich in the dust storm.

Three mile-long passes to the boundary.

The cutter comes once more in the dawn, blade glint and rasping the husks. I sit in the field, hidden in the long summer grass and pick over death in the stalks as time flows past me in a harvest of dust.