VINYL POETRY

Volume 5, March 2012

BIRDIE
Christopher PrewittView Contributor’s Note

Does the Cow Give Milk

I’m only happy
when I’m winning.
Traveling city to city
to pedal my wares
to oceans means
I need a car
to move forward.
Last summer my grandmother
looked for nearly an hour
at the refrigerator
before finally asking
“What are you?”
I turned twenty-five

and lost my car keys.
The summer before,
I made my father-in-law
ride shotgun to listen
to the rattle of my driver’s
side; I turned twenty-four
if it helps to keep up.
He couldn’t hear anything
over me saying “There it is again,”
and the crickets in the hollow
we were driving through
were chirping. It was extraordinary
to hear with his window down

to let out his cigarette smoke,
and he couldn’t hear it.
I hate to admit
that save for the lost
at sea found clutching
at a wave, or a spooked cow
giving milk, I am
mostly unhappy.
I stare at the pale spades
snow crabs walked a long way on
just to bake on a foiled pan
in my oven.
I call that a tie.