Audio: Read by the author.
What we were thinking
was bombing the cows with dirt balls
from the top of the sandbank,
at the bottom of which ran a cave-cold
brook, spring-born.
We knew the cows would pass below
to drink and we’d pried our clumps of dirt
from a crumbling ledge. Here
August lasted a million years.
There was no “we,” I can tell you that now.
I did this alone. At one cow
I knew as old and cloudy-eyed
I threw the dirt balls as if it were a sport
at which I was skilled.
Boom, a puff of dust off her hip, boom, boom: drilled
her ribs, and neck, and one more
too close to where she made her milk.
She swung round and chased me up an apple tree.
Her rage surprised me, and her alacrity.
She looked up. I looked down at her.
As with many things, I did this alone.
We both knew we’d soon be called home.