I once watched a cow give birth
      in the middle of a highway. Out of her opening
fell an opening, wet and brown and trembling. The cars
      skirted around her. Some men reached out
from their windows to slap her on the rear.

What is it we agree to when we come in
      to this world? We walk up the hill each morning,
barefoot, picking up dirt, dirt we believe has prayers in it,
      the prayer flags strewn over pines at the top of the mountain
so that the wind will daily scatter them

over the village where they are flattened
      under tour buses, motorbikes, half-constructed
houses where low caste boys hammer out copper plates
      all day, flattened under the water buffalo in the rice paddies,
its black muscles heaped together, its hot mind, its wet hooves.

Do we say yes before entering the day–
      it is assumed, it is presumed, that this world
and the things in it will touch you and you will not
      be able to wash off that dirt.

Would they show us the contract… would they have law
      explain it all to us – explain the body. Explain the body.
Explain the body. Law says all bodies
      are in a hierarchy, the brute
force of this world has a certain smile,

it smells like a thick clean-shaven chin. Show me
      the land where nothing governs except the sun. Can
not have it – plant, animal, woman, man, law, god –
      explain god. Explain god. Animal
kingdom, biological justification, Darwinian theory,

explain the body, explain the body. Cannot reason
      with flesh. No logic to be found in it. Touch
the wet dark mushroom, you can dismantle it
      by simply touching: look, the gills break apart
in your hands. How you dismantle
      the mind. How you unmake
the voice.

A woman limping asks us what it is
      that we are doing. Are we praying? The body inside the god
says yes – no – the god inside the body says yes and I am
      returning as an extension of earth and you must
recover your sensitivity it is a new law, we have not
      stopped speaking to you it is you who has ceased
to hear it. Hear it.