His first Hallow’s Eve,
I carved a pig in
honor of our farming ways. Then
kept it lit for days, hoping to
drive every last evil spirit away
from this house, or my heart.
Category: Rural
Harvest Moon
the shivering child in big black boots, the
pale pink moon
growing gold
as it anchors itself to the far
horizon, anticipating the harvest,
the foliage of autumn falling on amber fields
to be baled in the baleage
while cows chew cud along the cold hills
one day soon
one day soon, we’ll
eat the twisted furls of ferns,
celebrate our living in smoke spirals,
dance in fibonacci sequence, and
soothe our sore bodies in
cold creek water.
Seasons
Spring brings rains,
prepares your
body for what’s to
come, come summertime.
Summer comes with
leafy greens and
lean meats to build
strength; you soak up
sun, and work and work and work.
Autumn comes too soon, a
day late and you miss the
color change. Harvest saved:
you eat and eat of squash and
meat, build fat, learn to
relax, at last.
Winter begins quickly, with
shivers and sighs and the
wait for warmer days. The
sun hits low in the sky, and
you wonder if you will ever
have enough.
Fire at the edges
Fire at the edges of my nipples, and you
walk into the room like
banjos playing soft in the woods, to a Yankee.
Terrified of shadows because death is
always hidden at the corners of them, shift my eyes and
swear something moved at the edge of my vision
of you.
We twist words into yarn, spin it with abandon,
knit ourselves shawls and sweaters and blankets to
keep out the cold,
cold that
pleads and begs like an old
beagle, whines and howls and
melts at the doorstep in defeat.
Embers grow under my feet, I
watch the full moon creep across the
sky, empty of stars,
wait out the loneliness and
clench my fist around
one last piece of coal.
Cabin Cabaret
Our cabin cabaret, with moon
dances on pallets that bloom.
Outside, through gaps in cabin logs,
we hear twangs from strange bull frogs,
listen to sweet spring peepers
call to mate, imagine they speak.
Raise our cries up, our lies up, our wails in stark
contrast to the wild whispers in the dark.
Fox in the Henhouse
The sleek thief through tall grass, her
bellyfur wet with night dew. The
moon draws in the clouds, her
yellow teeth emerge from drawn lips.
She breathes in scents,
lets them fall over her tongue like language.
Smells the
reeking from a long ways off, she
soon finds the
chicken house, absent its dogs;
once inside, a sense of settling-
she might have lived here, if fate had said so-
even as she takes the hen from the lowest roost
even as the captured hen begins the death screams-
the other chickens stay silent.
Sheep Poem 2
How many times, then, can I describe the exquisite
warmth of hiding your face in the
thick wool of a full fleece on a finewool sheep, the
silken curls, the
stray piece of dead and dried aster, or the
prickly scourge of bramble. And the fields covered in
thick white frost, so thick you mistake it for snow. The
steam that comes from nostrils that are too much like
yours, the steam that rises from the whole body: you
imagine you see her heat the way it comes off a car’s top in summer–
shimmering mirage-waves. And on your knees,
beside your ewe–for you dictate her failures and
fortunes more than she–face burrowed in the
sweet smell of mutton and lanolin and hay-shit and,
when her cud comes up, acetone. The way the
barn is sweet and warm and dry, and the
sheep flock silent and close. Each day
a new day, each day a
new opportunity to
describe the wooly beasts.
To Kill a Rabbit
I catch the rabbit by the back legs,
assess the prize,
savor the victory.
Any old dog would do the same.
Attempt a quick dislocation of the neck,
eyes still wide open,
no kicking fits,
worry that it’s not dead.
Go to string it up by the back legs, it
hangs and does not fight; slice the
artery and it does not bleed; sever the head and
realize it was already dead.
I hope that it would
thank me if it could.
Throw the head to the cats, who
yowl and scuffle and one wins out,
begins to gnaw on the ears.
They don’t imagine regret.
Tear the skin at the neck, start down the belly, find
fat deposits white and veined along the chest.
Move to the back, keep ripping skin,
strip the pelt too easily.
Back to the chest, the
fat goes all the way down the belly, it
does not act like fat,
I accidentally tear it and it spills
white milk that runs and mixes with the red blood on the
butchering table and I
stop breathing with you.
I understand at once,
slow down,
turn to the
setting sun in
agony.
If He really was,
I would curse His name.
I do so anyway.
And then I must finish.
It becomes even more important to finish. The
waste is incredible, it
weighs in my throat, it
beats at my temples, a
thousand rabbits sit on my chest,
I want to be able to cry.
But it must be finished.
The cats gather and I throw the mammary sacs down to them.
They growl and slurp at the sweetest milk,
perverted children,
while the deserving kits will starve.
Peel the skin backwards across her paws,
save her rabbits feet. The
cats come looking for more and I
throw them the pelt, too delicate to save.
Cut open the belly, pull out the insides,
relieved to find no pinkies inside, no wonder her
milk was so rich, her
glands so swollen.
I rinse the milk and blood from her body,
revel in the pinkness of the meat, she is
so beautiful.
Honor her as best I can with
herbs and it will
never be enough.
If Sheep Can Tell the Weather
What words we unwound
in the shearing this year.
With the grass shorn down,
and the grey days, and the
long-ago baled hay.
Spring hinting at the windows,
the absence of frost and his
delicate patterns.
I learned to tell weather
by the clouds this year.
The sheep know the weather
by feel, but I’ve yet to
pick up that skill.
The way the flock will
set their backs to the storm,
the saying that a ewe will
choose the worst of it: the
coldest wettest night for her
lambing. It’s true.
Disturbed Shepherdess 