Gaunt, beneath pounds of material,
in a corner so dark I only knew
she was there when headlights passed
and her eyes flashed silver.
Cat eye, moon fog in darkness, and the
smell of manure worked into the seams
of everything. She rose and dragged the lame
left leg behind her and showed me the vacant
stall where the extraction pumps hung
metallic and finished, still as a surgeon’s tools
or execution wires. The wind whipped itself
against the siding of the barn, and she told me
there was no place to bury her. The Swiss clip
of her voice was as hard and unopenable
as the frozen ground; and then she took me
to the cellar, and I saw the rows of beans
and peaches, her botched fruits, magnified