Read backwards if you’d parse the bovine scroll.

Plasmatic parchment beef -and leather- bound,

screed softly lowed while Mary rocked her babe.

As when St. Peter, hanging by his toes,

bleeds back through time to purify parched rock,

spasmodically unscreaming with a smile.

*

Her spots, like leper’s wounds or leopard’s marks,

bespeak a blemished nature, apt to harm.

She moos inverted Om’s, a heathen moan.

Surely she keeps some darksome portent hid?

*

But nay, she mows the field and keeps her peace

and tends her children, and our own, with milk,

Grand doings, earth, or airborne, fast her move.

What glory to be dappled as a cow!

Rivka Crowbourne. Israel.