Sandra Yannone, "Domestic Violence: A Pastoral"

How will I tell 
this story? A bruise

so deep in the bone
takes weeks

to surface to skin. 
Timid sheep, 

bowed heads
in the foggy meadow,

devour the unsuspecting 
grass. No eye contact

drifts between them. 
In the broken-down barn

a rope slung over the rafter
waits patiently, slip-knotted

into a noose. The morning’s cows 
break through the barbed wire,

spill like sweet cream
into the backyard.

She mistakes the bull
for one, nuzzles 

her hand under 
his bristly chin, this

bovine imposter, this 
animal to whom she finds 

herself yoked. The noose
in the barn now circles

her neck, not a pretty cow 
bell signaling alarm. She will

swing like a glass axe
cutting into bone.

The sheep fall asleep
in the meadow. The cows

wire-torn, scratched 
blood red in the mist,

never come home.