by Lisa Timpf
do you remember
that magical night—
the laughing, leaping cow
kicking her heels high
over the moon—
dog couldn't stop laughing,
while you and I
played a merry tune,
a down-east jig,
the dish and the spoon
spinning and whirling
across the green,
dancing till dawn
but dish and spoon,
they up and left us,
no forwarding address,
left us there in the stark light
of morning-after,
cow nursing a sore leg
from a rough landing,
dog holding her aching sides—
if only we had known, then,
that the good times may not last
and the gang won't all be here
forever and a day, like we imagined
once upon a golden moon
once upon a time