Chapter 1
I’m like a Christmas cow going to market,
with a wreath of deep red holly ’round my head.
Before I go,
let me listen to the
Black Keys one more time.
’Fore I go,
lemme steal another stale donut
from Parker’s.
And put it in my pocket
for the birds on campus.
I am like a cow going to market.
Un supposing and not at all suspicious,
of my surroundings or why they have changed.
People may ask, is she conscious?
They put me in the back
of the burnt-out-ambulance.
Bind me with those
red and green straps
across my snout
Or maybe they were silver,
I can’t remember.
But you couldn’t have let me go
even if you tried.
I was never yours to begin with.
Let me go back to my brothers.
Let me swim in the ponds on campus.
With a rat tail trailing behind my arse, looking
like Ophelia with her mahogany hair,
her flames
unextinguished by the ripples.
I am a cow headed to market.
Black and brown, no more
grey delicacy to show.
No more pink nosed,
it’s rubbed down to a nub.
You have all been muddled,
Like milk and tea, into my skin.
I am a cow now at market.
With no one to buy
bid or steal this beast.
So, I will go back home.
To my cramped quarters.
And lock my dorm room door.
Turn on my radio,
and pull out my
burnt Bible
to enflame once again.
As the holly wreath falls
down around my shoulders,
like a harness.
