She sent me out to sell the cow because we needed money for milk. I swapped it for a bag of magic beans, and we had a big fight because she said I was stupid and useless and she threw them out the window saying I had ruined her and we would starve. We woke up late, the house shadowed by the vines. I was hungry so I cut off some of the leaves, stir fried them with a little oil, some salt, a few grains of pepper. Later we poached it, broiled it, boiled it, baked it, stewed it, sold it to the neighbors, the town, the state, canning it; like an outraged zucchini, it came back, it came back, and in the fall, the seeds blew everywhere and the vines tightened around the house the wind roared like a giant thundering through the forest. No one was hungry, and only in nightmares would some malcontent whimper about the feeble thrum of a harp singing to be rescued.
Helen Ruggieri lives in Olean, NY and has a book of haibun, The Character for Woman, available from foothillspublishing.com and a book of poems, Glimmer Girls, from mayapplepress.com.
