The door handle, smooth from roughhands
opening & closing, a camera’s shutter on the scene:
the round brown heifer calving on her own
in deepnight without help; her warmslick clumps
two-inch sawdust, stains the barnwood floor.
I shamequake in this childdream. An alien form,
afraid of its newness, the smell, I remember
the men beckoned me closer to witness
the calf stand on its own. How seldom to wonder
is its own category, its own box to check off, a To-Do
to classify as accomplishment. Instead, we follow
directions, believe in mythmaking, alternative facts,
progress. So. I believe the newborn nosetugged
at the mother’s teat, the way my mouth never
pulledon nipple, begged the body. Then, let me
wonder at lightparticles, the Milky Way, lacrimal ducts,
how my eyes spark when you appear, ghostmother,
when I thought you were what I had to let go.
The future is here: veal, so tender-battered & served
on cruises to tourists who clink champagne & chew
as they watch the glaciers quicken with the warming,
the slow moving turbines pumping & invisible
under a tonnage of water.
On Calving
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