milk

if it’s milk
it’s really white
glass eyes,
setting their
blurred sight
on what might
be bumpy roads,
or that mosquito
in the headlight
at summer’s end—
could it comprehend
its destruction lay
a fingertip away,
its sudden death
silent as a baby’s breath?
and if it’s oil
it’s really blood
hidden beneath
the frozen earth
and all that good
stuff they said should
thaw is awaiting
the caress
like dead wood.
it’s there, they say,
to recall the day
when summer’s green
kept us clean
and belief in Jesus
pleased us.