Exile

A calf had slipped the loose-strung wire,

and the herd in committee milled close

as if to reabsorb him, a mercury drop.

Small, dark, tufted boy,

eyes like clean leadlights.

He stared, the bald, fearing,

hating way a child of eight will stare

at a stranger, careless of offence.

 

Always you think a cow is about to

speak, give up the pretence of

thick-tongued chewing, of middle-distanced eye,

and focus—the way an acquaintance

at a bus stop will blink and suddenly

see you—and utter

something. As if you met a wild woman,

come down from a long stay upon

a wooded hill—hair grown brush-thick to the waist,

dirt laid on the grease of the skin

till it burnished to permanence

—still you would look in her strange eye and see

knowledge, and you could have words,

the meeting of knowing-speaking minds.

 

Thinking to help, I took a step.

A great mother cow

stretched her tufted neck

and screamed,

curdling, sound like metal

torn from metal, the others joining

as if burning alive. A whole room of people

refusing to know me, like some

dream.

 

Belinda Rule’s work has appeared extensively in Australian journals and anthologies. She thanks Bundanon Trust for the residency where she alarmed and was alarmed by the cows featured in ‘Exile’.