Excerpt from The Cow Caught in Ice, by Ted Genoways

iii. Tideline Debris

She watches for him by the window's leaded glass.
It ripples like tideline debris ringing edges
of summer ponds. As a girl, she crawled through tallgrass,

squeezing pollywogs till they shed their tails. Her ledges
hold vinegar and dillspice while she cooks, but nights
she lowers each jar till a circle forms around

the old Franklin stove. L.C. feeds a split rail-tie,
scavenged from the switchyard, into its grated mouth.
She rises first, her children still tucked in the loft,

and steps softly, now lifting each cold jar to rest
around the skillet. This is the time she covets:
when the stove is cool enough to touch, each hand pressed

hard against its belly to feel inside what's left
and almost breathing. The last four children drowned
in their beds before the pastor could hold their heads

under. Jaundice, doctor said, their stomachs so round
they were ready to pop. She can't live for the dead;
seven live mouths hang open. She slips back to bed--

two minutes till the coffee boils--but keeps one eye
on that orange egg purling across the frozen pane,
like watching her dad light stars in the nighttime sky

making constellations of sheep pens, against rain
and wolves and the darkness that never died in years
after he did. Go on sun, get up, sweeten snow

into warm rivers. It's all of those things she fears:
glass is fire and sand, water expands in the cold.
Seconds now, hold your breath--the kettle's lips explode.