Midnight Pastoral
by Kristy Bowen


Suppose we could describe it: the bird collector
with his binoculars and net gone home to his wife

in her blue-lit kitchen. The black pot boiling over on the stove
and the goats outside rubbing their bodies against the fence.

Who knows what he cages or what survives the night.
A girl in a white dress arcs toward the dark horizon, the world so

small you could climb out of it. So small you could pocket
the moon with a cupped palm. Suppose we could describe

her movement through bluestem and aster, or describe dress,
or girl, or even sky. That beautiful black climbing.

According to the birds. According to the goats.