-for my wife

In your sleep you talked.

There are cows standing in white mud.
A bale of hay has fallen out of the sky for them.
The cows are rejoicing,
Standing on their hind legs.
Their rough teats caked
With the white mud.
Their great skulls above the ground fog.

While you talked I bathed you with a sponge
From a basin of ice and alcohol.
I told you that in my childhood,
During the mud season, old boards ran from the house
To the barns and then out into pastureland ...

The farmer's wife is walking
On the old boards out to the dancing cows.
She's pissed and wants their milk.
Another bale of hay
Is falling from the sky. It's killed the farmer's wife.
Good enough for her.
The mud is sucking her down. Good-bye.

I said, "You know I love you."

Oh, my god, the farmer's wife is alive.
She's climbing out of the mud
Onto an old board. She looks like a tooth.
Oh, my god, she is a tooth.

I love you too.