Cows

By Deena Metzger

After seven lean years

we are promised seven fat ones,

if the cows do not die first.

Some care must be taken

to prevent their demise

in the scrub

or the slaughterhouse.

There must be enough bones

to throw and to bury.

The skull of a cow,

I put it on.

There are many strewn in the field,

there has not been much rain.

I look through the eyes,

that is, my eyes replace the eyes

that death has taken.

I can see out or through.

It is not a bad fate

to be a cow,

to be, at once,

so awkward,

so full of grace,

so full of milk.

Everywhere the udders are full,

the teats are ready,

the mouth of the calf is soft and deep.

I would thrust my hand in it

for the wet joy of being so used.

My own breasts are marked

from the time the milk came in too fast;

I did not have time to grow

to the moment of giving.

It is fitting

that beauty

leaves such scars.

Milk has passed through my fingers,

has spurted through my fingers,

but not once

during these seven lean years.

Copyright Credit: Deena Metzger, "Cows" from Ruin and Beauty: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 2009 by Deena Metzger. Reprinted by permission of Red Hen Press.