The Betrayal of Grandfather’s Cow

I went to visit them,
Grandma and Grandpa Lyvers,
when the barn was still there—when
there was still hay,
still mounded yellow piles to jump
into.

There were owls there,
flying things.
My sister would tell me
“look there” - “look there” and I saw
glimpses of them, like deaf hands
signing in the night sky, and then
we gasped with great surprises
when they would speak—
“who” – more like an accusation.

My grandparents had a cow.
It was on the other side
of the electric fence. I can remember
its eyelashes, and the way it stood there—
rarely leaning, like a solid kitchen table.
We looked at each other
and when I looked away it ate grass,
and when I looked back it stopped to look at me
again,
again,
again,

it was amusing to us both.

It was thinking—
playing some kind of cow-
game with me.

Inside the kitchen, the cow was
the topic of discussion—
my dad and my grandmother discussing
the economy of “splitting the cow”—
what a great deal it was.

The next time I visited, the cow was gone—
we were all betrayers.