Night

The poem can be said to take place at night because the speaker describes experiencing insomnia. The opening line reads, "I don't call it sleep anymore," casting nighttime (when most people sleep) as something open to molding. Conventional ways of thinking make way for new possibilities. Night imagery like "the rosen moon" construe the night as somewhat romantic, and the speaker later describes being "yoked to exhaustion // beneath the hip and plow of [her] lover" (15-16). The speaker spends most of her nights "wandering the desire field," and uses spring imagery to describe the "meadow between midnight and morning" (17 and 19).

The Desire Field

The desire field (which gives the poem its title) is born when the speaker renames her anxiety as a garden of desire. At night when she experiences insomnia, the speaker wanders "bewildered in [the] green glow" of this field, calling it "surprising / and many petaled...