Near the cold stone trough, where tree frogs
float sprawled across the surface, beside lurking
daddy long legs, the door opens with a wooden bar
lifted and a creak. And then you’re stepping in.
Murk, musk, shuffle of hooves, nickering.
Only a single bulb dangles. You find the string
and pull, see the sack of grain hanging on a nail
beside the scoop and pail. Kicking in the stall
as you prepare to feed. The same exchange this
building has known since the family came here
uttering a dialect so old your German friend
couldn’t decipher meaning for you when he held
in his hands the letters sent across an ocean
over a century ago. You could stay here without
need for words, the animal simply eating from
the pail you hold. You could climb the set of stairs
tight and dim toward the wood plank floor
where the haylofts rise above you, and with
body’s full force slide the massive doors open,
pulling the metal handles as your great uncles did,
the same way they made this barn. With bare
and calloused hands. No needs for notions
like language or time slipping out of reach.
You could stay here, choose to stall here.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 28, Issue 3.
Dana Holley Maloney is a native New Jerseyan who lives and writes in midcoast Maine. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in Tar River Poetry, The Lake, Paterson Literary Review, Pine Hills Review, Chiron Review, and elsewhere. She teaches English at Montclair State University.
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