studies English and East Asian Studies at Harvard College. Her work is featured in Poetry, The Cincinnati Review, and the Harvard Advocate: The Women’s Issue. She is from Oklahoma.
What the Guilin Farmer Told Me
2 Minutes Read Time
from Xingping, China
Slaughter mornings
he walks the baby cows alone
down to the river baby muscle peeking through skin like the swelling of
chrysalis or some other animal
endeavor toward
capacity.
Tiny horns tiny tree-buds little browning wrapped-up leaves
as if upon creation every little creature
was caressed.
And the bamboo trees—
the upshoots the sprawling
brushes of leaning canopy
shatterproof
that is
until their own weight
is too much to
hold.
Every layer of green
(strand of young grass or arm of silk water fern
or branches overgrown where the mountain breaks)
shades for the cows and their
farmer.
He tells me
if it were mid-September I could see
the fresh rice sprouts
pierce the muddy pools— for
now
it is another mid-June
another morningtime
by the river
I should tell you the baby cows’
mother is dead.
And just like that—
the river’s opening of the mountain valley the sky’s graduated coverings of stone
the white sun on the water folding into each rise
and each fall
(what is the sound of
calf as it separates
from mother
what is the sound of
calf nuzzling the calf before it
at play
the sound of clopping hooves on
the graying rocks of the beach).
As the calves drink they are bowing
their heads as the calves drink
their mother is dying
not thinking of them them not thinking of
her only of the cool water slicking
their tongues in the endless
summer heat.
The Guilin farmer offers the baby cows
a waxberry—
it is this
I cannot bear.
Read more from Issue 17.2.
