The old milk barn

I remember all the BB gun bullets

scattered over the old milking barn floor

are you still in style?

if I pick enough of you up

I can roll you in my palms like beads

decorate the mud with a mural

until you hold hands with me

by the rusty harnesses

again

sometimes I would try to talk to

the dead animals

ask if it was the BB gun that did it

I picture some 90s kid trying to be cool

really it did leave a mark

only little plastic marbles of color

rolling

toward me

I’m not sure what you wanted

ghost animals have glass cigarettes

staring at me soulfully

maybe that’s why I’m vegan now

I wasn’t squeamish about the chickens

getting plucked and gutted

until those soulful milk cow eyes

looked out from the shadows

and then I blinked — and it was about

that time of day the sun goes down

and my lids went down with it

and it was just a dusty old barn

with rusty harnesses

BB bullets

and I dropped my beads

and stepped on my mural, forgotten

and went out into the dimming light