For Malena Mörling, ‘Standing on the Earth among the Cows’

There is a cow in the field. Madly,
just one, and a docile lady at that.
Underneath she is full and bored.
She feels that there is a breathing
on the other side of the fence.
She stops to drink a can of Coke
before plunging her nose – which
is like cold wax – into the night air.
I eat some grass and spit
like a cowboy of dubious morals
in an otherwise black and white
film. There is no shooting star,
no slight twinge in the spine
of the earth. One of us gets
into the car, but does not drive away.