Sample poems from What Happens Next is Anyone's Guess:
It seemed plausible
just like everything else did back then. The giant ape climbing the Empire State Building. The blonde in his hand screaming. Wriggling. The plan seemed straight on. I was a girl and I was blonde and there was that to look forward to. Getting grabbed around the waist and carried to the top of the building which lead to the screaming my friend and I did in the haymow above my father’s cows. Just practicing, we said after kissing and touching each other’s breasts and then the screaming. I was never impressed by my own scream. It seemed to fall short. Not as good as Sandra’s. Down in the barn below, the cows never stirred. Nobody could hear us up there in the mow. All those bales stacked around us. Field after field of tall grasses and small birds and whatever got caught in the baler stacked neatly to the ceiling. If you put bales away damp, they’ll heat up, burst into flame. No matches. No smokes. If you put your hand in there, you can feel the heat. We were careful about it. But maybe that was just a myth. Barns catching themselves on fire. Point of origin unknown.
Lost Cattle in The Forest
Some take to travelling. Leaving gates open. You might
forget to close the barn door. You might open the gate
when the horse runs for it. You might have seen the heifer
that escaped from the barnyard. You were a child then.
You knew nothing about going missing yet. Maybe something.
You knew the barn. The bank of lights in the field that looked
like an airplane. The cows at the windows strapped
in their stanchions, tails swinging. Your father heave-hoe-ing
udder to udder. The mythic first-calf heifer. It wasn’t a
disaster, her calf born in the forest. Seen now and then
with the mother. The calf suckling for as long as the cow
would let her. All that milk in her mouth. Those farms they
skirted. On the lam. Disappeared. Living off the land.
Some saw the cow and the nearly grown calf outside the fence.
Some saw my brother. The forest. A flock of birds. You can
print it on you. Leaf mold. Twigs. A time. A place.
Since then, I’ve lost one horse. Two parents. A woman
I loved badly; a child that was never born. This is the call
cow and calf answered to when they reappeared bucked up
with burrs and under-weight. This is the stream they drank from.
What they did in the winter, I have no idea.
And when they gather
in the trees and make noise you know some other creature has downed something good to eat; the murder of crows trying to mob the killers off the killed. They rock back and forth at the tops of trees. Barking orders. Get out. Get out. That’s mine. That could be mine. I’d be a crow if my wings would work. How black my black would be. How shiny in the sun. Even the eagles would rise off the fields when I came round with my crew. I’d be a crow with a crew. I’d have the necessary muscle to move you down the road. If there was some gloss to my feathers. If I had a voice that could move you off that carcass you’re on. Yesterday, in the woods behind my house, I woke to an owl clutching another owl in its talons, and the crows flocking the trees above them. The carcass too big for the owl to move, it pecked at it in the crotch of the tree. It tried to move it, then flopped with the dead to the ground. How the crows moved in closer. One thing to see the crows going for the carcass, another to see the owl trying to eat its own.
It seemed plausible
just like everything else did back then. The giant ape climbing the Empire State Building. The blonde in his hand screaming. Wriggling. The plan seemed straight on. I was a girl and I was blonde and there was that to look forward to. Getting grabbed around the waist and carried to the top of the building which lead to the screaming my friend and I did in the haymow above my father’s cows. Just practicing, we said after kissing and touching each other’s breasts and then the screaming. I was never impressed by my own scream. It seemed to fall short. Not as good as Sandra’s. Down in the barn below, the cows never stirred. Nobody could hear us up there in the mow. All those bales stacked around us. Field after field of tall grasses and small birds and whatever got caught in the baler stacked neatly to the ceiling. If you put bales away damp, they’ll heat up, burst into flame. No matches. No smokes. If you put your hand in there, you can feel the heat. We were careful about it. But maybe that was just a myth. Barns catching themselves on fire. Point of origin unknown.
Lost Cattle in The Forest
Some take to travelling. Leaving gates open. You might
forget to close the barn door. You might open the gate
when the horse runs for it. You might have seen the heifer
that escaped from the barnyard. You were a child then.
You knew nothing about going missing yet. Maybe something.
You knew the barn. The bank of lights in the field that looked
like an airplane. The cows at the windows strapped
in their stanchions, tails swinging. Your father heave-hoe-ing
udder to udder. The mythic first-calf heifer. It wasn’t a
disaster, her calf born in the forest. Seen now and then
with the mother. The calf suckling for as long as the cow
would let her. All that milk in her mouth. Those farms they
skirted. On the lam. Disappeared. Living off the land.
Some saw the cow and the nearly grown calf outside the fence.
Some saw my brother. The forest. A flock of birds. You can
print it on you. Leaf mold. Twigs. A time. A place.
Since then, I’ve lost one horse. Two parents. A woman
I loved badly; a child that was never born. This is the call
cow and calf answered to when they reappeared bucked up
with burrs and under-weight. This is the stream they drank from.
What they did in the winter, I have no idea.
And when they gather
in the trees and make noise you know some other creature has downed something good to eat; the murder of crows trying to mob the killers off the killed. They rock back and forth at the tops of trees. Barking orders. Get out. Get out. That’s mine. That could be mine. I’d be a crow if my wings would work. How black my black would be. How shiny in the sun. Even the eagles would rise off the fields when I came round with my crew. I’d be a crow with a crew. I’d have the necessary muscle to move you down the road. If there was some gloss to my feathers. If I had a voice that could move you off that carcass you’re on. Yesterday, in the woods behind my house, I woke to an owl clutching another owl in its talons, and the crows flocking the trees above them. The carcass too big for the owl to move, it pecked at it in the crotch of the tree. It tried to move it, then flopped with the dead to the ground. How the crows moved in closer. One thing to see the crows going for the carcass, another to see the owl trying to eat its own.
