Accounting

Night falls and Klava can’t find sleep.
Fourteen again, war over,
she harvests hay with Old Semyon.

They hitch the wagon to the cows and ride
behind the combine. Klava above,
Semyon below. He tosses hay,

she tamps it down under her feet.
One of the cows must be her cow,
survivor of the occupation

almost slaughtered by the liberating army.
A famous village cow, 
in that she was good. And when

the army boys took her, to turn her
into meat, Klava’s mother ran
to the commanding general

and insisted on the cow’s return.
Most nights Klava sees again—the hay,
the cows, the wagon, Old Semyon.

As she tells her story the sun falls
behind the tree line, the screen darkens.
Her image pixelates to dusk.

As I tell it to you now
I see it all again, before me,
and I don’t know why I remember.