I may not yet be fifty but the field
underneath this cap’s not growing taller.
I can’t imagine going to the barn
without it. Someone would have to sneak
into the shed and steal it from the nail
it’s hung on since Dad brought it home for me
from Chicago before I’d forget to
put it on or take it off. If it weren’t there?
I’d stand as dumb as a November field.
I’ve had this John Deere cap for twenty years.
It wasn’t the last thing he brought me home.
It was the only thing he brought me home.

Stephen Brockwell lives in Ottawa but drives to Montreal more often than his family would like. His third book Fruitfly Geographic was published by ECW Press this spring. Wild Clover Honey and the Beehive, a sonnet collaboration with Peter Norman, will be performed at the Ottawa Writers Festival this year.