Zoë Field

Fool of the Corn

Frankfurt am Main

thats me running behind a concrete column

trying to recreate the crop of Godelieve’s goon from the waist down.

                                 he creeped beneath the stem of a vaulted arch

                                 we see him in the foreground

                                 where he strangles her with his accomplice in stripes

produced on a train between Dortmund and Köln, my Danish friend and I sat coloring in these shapes

with black and yellow markers. my legs soon rejoiced in ogees and ogives, a rose trace upon frog limbs.

                                 the fool gets off work but doesn’t remove her tights

                                 nor her ears (she is obsessed with her job, her social position)

                                 she lives a trick even off duty — a natural

on the eve of my harvest dance I arrived too late for the corn had been plowed, the field flattened.

I had already seen the barley go weeks earlier, and I knew in the weeks ahead the corn would

be treated with preservatives, cooked sugared and vacuum sealed to be sold through the winter.

but ooo! the freedom to flail around this spikey metal sculpture!

the original plan to stick it in the soil and crown with corn tassel,

bind with wire and bells — a corset corsage — nixed

my sceptre went hoodless that night.

                                 (

                                 bearing the uncomfortable faces of comedy

                                 the fool’s baubles are her petrified souvenirs

                                 and tragically some of her only friends, those she has crafted herself -

                                 peeled punctured salted

                                 drained dry and spongy

                                 she pierced their eyes with clove

                                 slid them onto glittered skewers

                                 when they are not dancing

                                 they rest patiently in a basket of rice

                                 )

I collect thistle and dandelion weed,

wild arugula that grows from between cracks in cement tiles

I saw the sherbert morning rise

felt copper sludge and orange peel -

a liberty had overcome me!

                                  the fools judgement is clouded after an excess of apfelwine and cigarettes

                                  it had just gotten off work, except it hadn’t worked a day in months

                                  the fool loves to get fucked up, doing only whatever it wants

Zoë Field (b. 1990, New York) is currently based in Frankfurt am Main where she is studying at the Städelschule. She received her BFA Sculpture from Pratt Institute in 2012. Recent and upcoming exhibitions include, It’s all Natural…, Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden (2016), EVA, Interstate Projects, Brooklyn (2016), Autotomy, The White Page, Minneapolis (2015).

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