M A R C H   1 9 9 4

A HUMDRUM LIFE

I am a white cow with horns
but no peripheral vision,
full face you would think
I could see inside and out
my eyes are so big and round.
My nails click on cement in
a different music from bells
of herds in the Pyrenees
which sound like Tibetan
states of mind rather than
these incongruences.
I have been used as a joke
lost in a china closet,
I have been abused for my milk,
I do not have a family
or friends. The farmer I sought
did not exist who would take me
into his sweet growing pastures.
I finally accepted
an offer to work on the street.
Here I do not have to know
how I stand out in the crowd,
blind as it is to me.
The noon hour is hot,
my hide does not improve.
No great wishes, like trees,
stand between for shadow.

Alice Rose George is the photography editor of Granta. Her poems have appeared in the New England Review and The Paris Review.