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In July, swimming behind the mud dam constructed to retain water for the herd, he nearly drown, the tendrils of green rope growing from the pond's floor wrapping around his thighs and pulling him, down...he nearly drown, and that changed everything.  After coughing up the water he had swallowed, his eyes popped open and there was Milo kneeling over him.  Curious cows were in the vicinity, perhaps secretly cheering for a human's demise.  Market day was last Thursday and the Hereford mob around them well-remembered...   Sons and daughters going off to war.

Coming to, his mind clearing a little, it dawned on him that Milo must have had his lips locked to his.  He was grateful, and he was getting hard.  To hide it, he went back in the water, an intrepid act that Milo applauded as he shooed the cattle off of the narrow little beach.  Standing belly-button deep in the water, Milton's erection bobbed below the surface.  He was watching Milo naked stretched out on the muddy bank.  Dark thoughts...deep water...drowning again..

The Perfect Sentence

The brambles of hair on my forearms have become
--in the humming summer sun--
like ripened flax
against the good brown earth of my skin.

And in the buzzing,
a July night's insect chorus,
one swears one can hear the engines --
of planes,
of jets,
of flying saucers spinning
yarns from other galaxies,
(yawns from this one)
knitting brows and browsing
possibility
on these antennae. 

The harvest of hairs,
shaved by the wind's warm breath,
stand erect again...

this shiver,
this hunger for the sun, this belief
or better this knowledge 
of the eternal as it burrows
beneath the crops and climbs the tops
of ancient trees
or drops
like waterfalls
down upon his prayerful knees,
wholly absorbed
in the sound,

his own breathing.

Alpha Ayrshire

A butter cow, down east, first gave her insides--jasmine-kissed milk--not only proudly, quite stubbornly; teets under very weak examination yielded. Zebu, your excellent whey, vats under the stairs reducing quietly, pulls on natured micro-organisms like keifer. Jailed inside her gifts from evaporation, delicate cheeses become art.

Pajamas

Someone breathing behind the curtains,
a synonymous pause
in the conversation.  Silence,
uncertainty...

The racket of the springs, the year
you jumped too high.  You hit your head
on the ceiling, crumbled, a concussion
and a bloody nose
on grandma's crazy quilt.  All your mom's
prom dresses puzzled together,
bad memories.  The sanquine stain/her greatest humiliation,
had been cut away, and now soaking
in your third period:  Algebra
and a nauseous boredom
with everything.

Before,
(you are a tom boy)
the fabric is the farms and fields
from five miles up.  Geometric abstractions,
not messages from telegraphing God's
just a vague topography
of honest men,
good women who know nothing
save the virtues
of a world without saints.

Pray anything.  Just loud enough
to be heard by the adults
playing cards you got on your birthday,
that rhythmic cadence
a murmur that suggests a faith
that left us all
long ago.

Stanzas for Gramma

Working in the flowers
in the bright Dakota sun,
she would wile away the hours
waiting forward kingdom come.

In every nook and cranny,
she had little aches and pains:
a wiry kind of granny
armed with ear aid and a cane.

But she was a merry widow,
her abuser long since dead.
She confided to me, "Kiddo,
love is never made of dread."

She showed me yellowed pictures
from fifty years into the past;
I was my granddad without whiskers,
a genetic shadow he had cast.

So Gramma watched for signs of temper
and a tendency to dream,
looking for a chance to censure
her grandson for who he "seems"

I stayed in my grandma's cellar
when i was working on the farm,
fantasizing about fellers
while the snakes did me no harm.

Comes morning she would call me
for hot oat meal in July
then her criticism stalled me
as she looked me in the eye.

Her tongue was barbed but subtle
inferring I was less a man;
left no room for a rebuttal
and no place for me to stand.

So I escaped her breakfast table,
joined my cousins on my horse.
I was hardly feeling stable:
craving love/receiving force.

A year of fearless living
and news came she had died
We saddled up the horses,
rode through twilight while we cried.

Bumpkin

Maribel is meticulous
sitting on the porch
nervously shucking peas.
And all the nuns
and prostitutes work hard
down on their knees.

What skills did you bring
to the city
when you came?
I would rather call you bumpkin
than pretend
you have a name.

People call you resilient
simply
because you're not dead;
and people call you sexy
only because
you give great head.

Maribel is bored at night
she listens
to the farm;
she prays to faceless angels
that her little boy
won't come to any harm.