the cows come home

the cows come home 
& we are not ready. you push a chair 
against the front door & nail the windows shut.
i tell you i want it to happen. for everything
to happen. for the cows to come
& fill the house. push the walls apart
like flesh in too-tight pants. 
i am so sick of living without cows.
so tired of the internet talking every day
about fires & dictators. i crave a cow in the bath
& a cow in the living room & a cow
chewing all my old binders of taxes.
records of what the government has 
used to feed it war police face. the cows
hate the government. the cows 
want to eat until they are round & wild.
for there to be no fences & no cars.
i share their hunger but not yet their urgency.
how do you make room for your
cow self when the walls are thin & the grass
is dry & thunderless? you tell me we can
survive. that we can grow tomatoes in the window 
from one of your eyelashes. that there
are flowers that taste like meat. i do not 
hold strong. god i want the comes to come home.
i want them to come home so bad. 
i remove the chair from the door 
to your protestations. i throw the windows
open wide & wait but they do not come.
the cows, are not home yet. they are
somewhere else. standing outside
a war machine. standing on the moon
as a new colony considers fresh forms 
of subjugation. the cows are angry at me
& us. they said, "all of this flesh &
still you cannot sleep." i cannot blame them.
my people too have been ground 
into mouthfuls & corralled into smaller
& smaller worlds. i hang bells from the branches
of every tree i can find so that when they come
i will hear them & be ready.