DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
				    
        "Strayed away on the 23d of June...in Germantown a fresh milch black COW, 
	       with a white head....Whoever secures the said cow, and gives notice that she 
	       be had again, shall have the reward of TEN SHILLINGS and reasonable 
	       charges."   

	        - Printed on the front page of the July 10, 1776 Pennsylvania Gazette along 
       	with the Declaration of Independence   
  
I wonder, but, no, that body of night,   
her head a moon four days from full,   
she must've heard Elvis singing   
"Milkcow Blues", she must've even known my poems,   
  
seen her sisters   
moving from Texas to Ogallala in the shadow   
of the buffalo, seen golden arches   
burning, Chicago's glow off Lake Michigan,   
  
tasted the grass from the Boston Commons to Appalachia to past the    
Sierras,   
known the plains, the slaughterhouse, lush fields and Dust Bowl,   
art, methane, growth hormones, golden sylphium on the prairies,   
the width and breadth of the sky.   
  
She took a walk   
and never gave it back, and by now,   
by now I bet her eyes are full   
behind these clouds   
  
spread over us   
like wrapping paper,   
like skin,   
like history.