Neighbor

I hear

my Muslim neighbor

talking to her cow.

My Muslim neighbor

has a name.

Her name

is Nenae.

From the side,

her face

is the shape 

of a crescent moon.

Her body

is sinewy thin

like the branches

on the farthest reaches

of the baobab tree

in the center

of our village.

Her eyes

are kind

and tired,

glowing softly

like the light

at sunrise.

She is

beautiful,

human,

beautifully human.

Every morning

she talks her cow

into giving  

a pail of milk.

She leads her cow

into a small area

enclosed by a bamboo fence.

She is close to her cow

and to the land

she shares

with me.

She sings to her cow,

and the song

fades into

pings and splashes

of milk

hitting the sides

of a wooden calabash.

- trevor scott barton, poems for brown eyed girls, 2021