Final Valentine

I felt sure
that together you
and I might be an example
of something beautiful
and on a spring
day that was really only
mid-February we celebrated ourselves
too soon.  I
walked into a barn
and let the baby goats suck
my fingers until they bled.  It's instinct
to cry when the skin breaks.  You started
with the other agricultural
tourists who had also assented
to the liability clause.
If the chickens
knew anything, they didn't say.  A cow
followed the children
like a dog.  Later
they ate him.

- Magdalena Zurawski

Published in the Oxford American, No. 77