The farm’s asleep again. Don’t wake it.  

There are plenty other things we can do 

for the afternoon. A little down the highway 

is another, among other things, like music 

you’re not supposed to listen to, which exists 

only as an answer to a problem it posed for itself. 

Less the value of barns and more the doctrine 

of barnishness. The goats seem to agree, 

up around the heather and soda cans littering the

field across from the sweet corn we nestle 

behind a few rows of feed corn to keep people 

from stopping. All the best farms are psychological

not formal, which is another thing we learned 

from the confession, when we thought 

it would be the other way around. I would’ve even bet

it was the other way around, and now look at us, lined

up at the astrologer’s office, goats 

watching from out in the truck. They want information

and you’re not sure if you should give it to them 

or not. Maybe you should. They’re looking at us

that way that makes you think you should, 

the mistiness of their gaze, the droopy mouths, 

the earnest way they got when they last asked 

to borrow that book on soy. Suddenly it’s all the rage,

like that list of the cultural differences in response to

pain that left us feeling implicated. “You won’t feel a

thing,” they chanted outside the bedroom window that

night. It was a long night. Maybe this 

is the information they want and you’ve 

already given it to them. If you’re anything like me,

your body language gave you away long ago.