Jenny used to take the cows in
to the concrete block milking house,
its whitewashed walls now paneled off.
She took them into her arms there
in the dark. Together, they expressed
a labor I will never know–sometimes
in drowning bands of rain, in frost that cut.

I think of her as I lean over the arm
of my inherited sofa–expressing ill.
So little I have now is my own
except this pain in my leg, my belly:
a poison place I give to you again.

It threatens to crest forth–
bellows out to you, even now.