Behind the Barn
Murky like a dream, a memory— was it ever real? The past replays itself through the hazy film of time, like a piece of light I thought I caught, but my hand held nothing at all. Nails digging into palm, hit the dresser with a crack. There are words I remember; they mean nothing now. Slaughter the old cow, her milk’s gone sour. Too many pulls at the teats. Dried them up, left them hard She won’t care either, she carries the disease. The memories have all become dreams, and all of them hovering beyond the barn they shot her behind. Sweet daisies grow so tall now. Petals cradle the past. Blood-soaked roots deliver the times you left me alone, way up the scoliosis stem. Screaming through pollen transported by bees to grow more bees, with stingers made from the old cow’s curdled attempts at life. How bitter a taste did she leave me with? Salivating with a tongue that remembers the drench of honey.
Like so many poems I don’t understand what I read but I felt what I read. There’s something sad about what’s happening to a cow, the tongue. Remembering. It’s brutal. But it’s beautiful written. The juxtaposition is the jarring thing. The contrasts bring light and I can see.
Wow… this is haunting and vivid. I can feel the past clinging to every image, the bitterness and sweetness tangled together—it lingers long after reading.