A farmer with clover

He named his cattle after his girlfriends until he ran out of girlfriends. 

Then he turned to flowers—Lily, Pansy, Foxy (short for foxglove)—all frilly, 

and quite silly for the lumbering, stolid ruminants feeding on the green, 

green pasture in the reedy paddocks beside the river, paddocks ripe

with the danger of flash floods, ragwort, and trails of tubercular possum spoor. 

But, as if in compensation, clover flourished, and lucerne: lucky, licky

plants, rich and fleshy, bee-sucked, honey-filled, rich and spreading 

for Dorothy, Lily, Pansy, Foxy, and Marigold, who would feast on until they could

no longer fart, no longer burp but collapse with their bloated bellies filled

not with calves but with gas, like over-inflated tubes, desperate for a puncture.

The river was swift, deep and dangerous, with whirlpools swirling giddily

around rocks; the rain could be relentless, the wind razor-sharp.

But when the sky was blue, the clouds white, and the hills lilac

in the distance, the farmer, you could say, lived in clover, happy,

with Dorothy, Lily, Pansy, Foxy, Marigold, and his Swiss Army knife.