the black cows dance madly
beneath winter’s grand pantomime
ivory flakes
like god’s loose teeth
evanescent upon their funeral cloaks
the creatures spring forth
in ecstasy
like calves no longer governed
by wobbled limbs
thin flakes mosaic
moon-drawn
in their open mouths
upon recognizing their kin
the heard is shy of their own beauty
how startling and vast
they make the world appear now
in the still wake
of twilight
soon the sun shrinks
behind sloven gypsum clouds
and for the first time this year
the cows will not vanish
in the night
