when my heart is restless
i find myself dreaming of brown ducks
and mild-eyed cows
and the cinnamon-colored stripe
between the shoulder blades
of the cotton-tailed rabbits munching clover,
as if the life bucolic did not come
with red-tailed hawks and foxes
and five-o’clock-milkings in the frigid dark;
as though the cure for what ails me
could be found in the sheer tilling of the soil
or the kneading, resting, stretching, shaping,
baking of a dough for bread.
