We had a cow, Obeidah the cow.She had big wide eyesbut the whole herd had big wide eyes.She was dappledbut the rest of them were dappled.She had two large uddersthat daily gave two or three buckets of milkbut every other cow in the herd had full uddersmy mom milked for the same amount.Most of the time Obeidah had snot running down her noseand that was disgustingand pervasive in the herd we owned,their nostrils were snot-filled.And whenever we took her calf away from under herObeidah used to shed tears like human tearsand that was the case for the rest of the cowswhenever we took their calves away from themthey cried like humans might.Obeidah used to suffer longing.And would low a painful moo.The whole herd could do thisand rip our heart cords apart, send usinto hiding under blanketsas if taking coverfrom a night monster until daybreak.At daybreak we'd declare our safe presenceby taking a piss out in the openone after the othera natural rite of passageas the sun recited her hymns overhead.Then into the plains we, kids, would gounafraid of being lostwhere we'd been in a previous life.We knew even the smallest rocks,the yellow snakes, their crossing time,and in our mouthswe held a piece of bread each,and in each hand a thin stickoff the corpse of the poppy plantwe used to call the bitter orange bush.We would run brandishing our stickswith Obeidah and the entire herd ahead of usand alongside themour dog, Camel.                                         —Jiftlik