They Marched Through My Dream

They marched in a line, through the

Darkness of my dream, their bodies

Engorged as I remembered them, eyes

Wide, frightened, reflecting our betrayal,

To this day I remember her, her loss

I felt so strongly as a child, hearing her

Loud, horrified cries as that man

With his three stubbed fingers,

Forced her onto the bed of his truck,

“No,” I had yelled, cried out, she was

My world, my Molly…and she was there

At the head of the line, Molly so big,

So beautiful,

They were all there, Molly, her daughter

Beauty, and Baby, my Becky’s mother and some

I hardly remember, ones we hadn’t named,

In a long line,

Waiting,

My father, he was gone, but his words,

His history, his indifference remained,

A farm is no place for the soft of heart,

Our food begets our food, the first mistake

Is naming them, the second is loving them,

And the third is sending them to slaughter,

I left the farm right after high school and

Never looked back, the memories, the

Reminders, they still haunt my dreams,

My own private nightmares,

Of a place I can never return to,

And a barn that was both my haven

And the place of my first, worst nightmare.