Twice a night, once
at twelve and once
before, I used to
whisper to the cow skull on the mantle of my home.
(in his gentle bony ear):
Please
protect me from the frost snake
(coldest death this side of Santa Fe)
I slept with anise
seeds tucked in my sleeves
to clear my nightmares into fields
and fields of clover dreams.
Now, I don’t know
where my skull went. Where
could I have lost it? And
I heap my sheets with pointed seeds,
but I cannot undusk my dreams.
What did I forget?
Every night the dark
thistles down into a cave
full of mirrors, frosted
sheaths and darkened
seams and he is there.
I hear him hissing
over sheeny rivers,
into purer streams
of colding. I know now
to search the silence before
the terrible lowing.