Bovine Dreams and Urban Legends ... Or ... Let Sleeping Cows Lie

She is a cow apart

At least a dozen are asleep on their feet under a live oak tree

Huddled close in the cool night air

She is a good fifty yards away

Close to the fence

Legs twitching just a bit

Like a dog chasing a squirrel while sleeping

Or a cow sensing someone approach while she sleeps

And trying to run away

Trying

But not doing

Though she is moving now

Just the slightest bit

Revealed in her markings

Markings just like a cow costume

The black blending into the background on a starless night

Like their clothes probably does

The white just a lighter bit of dark

But enough lighter

To reveal ripples on her left

Probably starting on her right

Where she can almost feel the hands pushing

Harder

As the ripples increase

As does the leg twitching

And then she starts listing

Like in the black and white titanic themed nightmare

Of someone about to leave on a two week north Atlantic cruise

Except the iceberg isn’t larger than the boat

Above or below the water

And it isn’t white

Standing there as

Slowly she goes over

Landing with a soft thud

But failing to drop beneath the surface

Then her eyes snap open

And she is lying in the wet grass underneath that live oak with all the others

Illuminated in the light of sun rising up over the hills