what it does to you. Cracked pipes. Iced meat furry,
refusing to cook. Before this farm, I lived in a city—
Decembers, my father woke me with a hair dryer
under the covers; sheets lofted like a lung.
I’ll always be there. My bed was by the door,
the door of his rusty faucets and spit, the squeal of plastic
curtains sliding to trap the shower, but it didn’t matter
how loud his waking ritual; I was always sleeping.
My first job, feigning sleep. I did it down to the cell.
Like frost over floorboards a restlessness spread,
more temperature than word. Will I remember this
pasture in the morning? I was raised at night.
Follow the red glow of brake lights from windowpane
to ceiling, out the door, over roofs until roofs grow rare,
fear the unborn eyes of cows, keep the hand flat
and a crabapple square in the middle—mouth into palm.
In saddle Oxfords I walked past the perfectly cubed hedges
of the church, its pretty windows, a cat stalking behind me
parading its first dead mole, black fuzz at the lips.
I couldn’t bear the touch of small animals.
Now I want to gather every creature
whose bones a child might tweeze from an owl’s pellet
or find against the rag when cleaning a cat’s sick.
This is the loneliness that turns one superstitious.
For I spilled the salt. For I did not knock wood.