_________________________________________________
Lunch in a Town Named After a Company Slowly Poisoning Its Residents
I saw a cow once on a hilltop casually stretch her neck
to face behind herself so that her hind leg might scratch
between her eyes with her hoof. I can’t emphasize enough
how casually she pulled this off, while obviously I was
gobsmacked, having never seen a cow do that before
and having never given thought to whether it was possible.
Well, it’s possible. Things slid back to normal after that
despite life’s electric charge, which I don’t let get the better of me.
Sometimes I feel like something might be underway,
but I just wait it out: hands on the table, eyes on the wall.
Meanwhile, it’s safe to say the cow is long since gone.
Not on account of what I saw, but because I saw it long ago.
A cow’s life expectancy is only fifteen years or so.
Me, I’m right here: red beans on yellow rice, a slightly
brown avocado. The day started off in clouds and the clouds
don’t always part. To ask too much of life would spoil it.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Timothy Donnelly’s most recent book, Chariot, was published in 2023 by Wave Books. His previous books include The Problem of the Many, winner of the inaugural Big Other Poetry Prize, and The Cloud Corporation, winner of the 2012 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. A Guggenheim Fellow, he teaches at Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn with his family.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Jack B. Yeats, The Road to Galway, oil on panel, 1924
Go to Source
Author: Terence Winch
