Human Terms

The albino calf stands
in the pasture, shining.

Autumn. Last spring's
birds are back.

They must be exhausted.
Isn't this the luck

of life—to see the one
thing, then the other?

It's all right to fall in love
with the idea of that gleaming

freak with its pink-
rimmed eyes, its near

blindness. So young. Nearly
spirit I might say. Other-

worldly. But don't let me
turn a white calf into myth.

The creature shoulders
into the dappled herd.

Something nameless pushes
the strange one forward,

pulls the birds
back to us, to nothing

to do with us. We can't help
wanting to be the story.

I stole figs today
while watching cows.

They loosened
into my hand easily

and opened, as if they had
been waiting for me.