By Steve Rubinstein
A woman on her way
to a barn with two buckets-
one empty for warm foaming
milk- one yesterday’s dinner
for pigs.
Behind her a girl only
dreaming a cow all her own
beneath which to kneel
warm dung. moist hay
touching softly the udder
to hum.
Before them a cow
one horn turned down,
black fur as a moon-poor night,
yellow stripe down her length
behind her a calf
looking forward.
Up here is a farm owned by a woman
no longer sleeping in Winter
worried when darkness
runs snowed ridges
her cow chewing cud
in the cold.
