Culvert

When we awoke, we stamped
the harried earth with our hooves
and flicked the flies from our ears,
stretching our necks over the fence
to nibble the choicest greens.
When the pasture heaved and the hillocks rolled,
we toppled,
our racks of iron ribs crushing the clover.

When we awoke, we knotted
our tiny bibs around our necks 
and flitted from hide to hide
on tiny segmented wings, alighting to lap 
at the sticky seams
until our bellies split and our juices squirted
from our armored abdomens.

When we awoke, we circled
on creaking feathers,
gulping beakfuls of bugs
that bored our stomachs into sieves,
causing us to crash
into the woolly gray husks
of the clapboard semaphores.

When we awoke, we plunged
our thirsty roots into the spongy soil,
slurping sustenance until 
the piercing frost sucked
the marrow from our stalks,
caused our supple leaves 
to crackle into dust.

When we awoke, we grew
a thousand mouths in place of eyes,
with rows of fangs for lashes
and a thousand stomachs in place of hearts.
When we scraped our chairs up to sit
at the table of the fields,
we took a bite 
and choked on what we saw.

When we awoke, we crouched
in the drainage pipe that ran 
like a sphincter beneath the road,
linking ditch to swollen ditch. 
A thin gruel of digestive runoff 
trickled across our toes
as we huddled amongst the bones
and waited for the world to finish feasting.