Cows in March

by Charlotte Mathews

Number 29 looks at me suspiciously
like she thinks I’m behind the decision to
move her to this pasture without
the round bale, the one further
from the creek where she likes to shift
and circle, then lie above the water
in the late afternoon sun.
She’s the color of butterscotch,
of light on broom sedge, and between
her mascaraed eyes is a cyclone of fur
so stately it’s almost implausible
When I touch her, it smells like
childhood, like bread just out of the oven.
Like we could go on and on without worry.
She and I abide a long time, minutes, just
the two of us, the rest of the herd gathered
beside the barn near the western gate.
In the adjacent orchard hundreds of peach trees
are poised to burst open in a show of pink
so lustrous it’s enough to break your heart.
I think of my neighbor who I once saw
photographing spider webs in the morning.
It was like time stood still, this grown man
enraptured, catching beads of dew in light.
Maybe all loves come like this,
briefly stilled, intrepid and raw.