Mooncalf

Not so much birthed as
aborted by something
absolute, it arrived
among them much unloved

by the shambling herd.
It suckled no milk,
thirsted some great otherness.
Nudged, it stumbled out

of the tremulous barn
wobbly-kneed, wandered
beyond the pale hedgerows
into open pasture

untroubled by thoughts
and chewed on shadows,
drank from a swirling shallow
cribbed in space.

It was found in a field
like a cloud-blotted moon,
withholding origins.
The older ones would read

omens of some other world
in a wormholed morn,
the odd-numbered nubs
on a flawed, unhallowed head.

—Wade German