My Uncle's Farm

I loved these vacations on the farm of my aunt and uncle, because my life there was so different than at home. Everything was matter of fact. They had a black watch dog that was always chained to the dog house, never played with, and fed our leftovers. In my world people took walks with their dogs and fed them dog food. I chose the poem to be in the voice of my younger self.


Some summers I spend on my uncle’s farm.
The house smells like potatoes,
cider cellar, fresh air,
and my dead great-grandmother.

I am nine years old and driving tractor is
almost like being grown up.
The scent of freshly cut grass fills my small body
and lives inside me.
Makes me want to be a cow and chew slowly,
with that crunching sound.

A skinned rabbit hangs on the fence,
his eyes seemed still alive
as if caught in surprise.
Dinners are soup, dumplings, homemade bread,
and meat on white table cloth.

My older cousin Helmut hides a magazine
under his mattress and shows it to me
one evening.

In the morning I go with uncle Willi
to the pigeon coop.
It is built on stilts above a small creek
like a tree house.
He has so many birds
and sometimes he makes them fly away
with a letter wired to their leg.
He climbs up the ladder and comes back
with a pigeon.
Her eyes are like little pieces of coal
and a string of purple feathers
lines her neck like a necklace.
Her body is the color of dolphin.

Uncle Willi's two fingers
wrap around the pigeon's neck
and with a twist and a quick jerk
he rips off her head.
He tosses it into the river.
While he walks towards the house
with her body,
I watch her face swim away.