The Farm ...

A chicken turns-head and looks at me sideways.

A feral cat looks me dead on.

A lady on the farm looks softly around me,

As though I were already gone.

If I linger long enough, she'll start smiling,

Lift a still-warm brown egg off the straw,

And cook it on cast iron for me—like that's normal,

The magical thing I just saw:

That her hands pull from earth bits of living

That she nurses, and could eat between rows, years of days.

That her odor is earth—I step back, overwhelmed.

She says, “G'night,” through her hair; through the back of her head,

                                                      still her gaze.