Tag: The Two-Headed Calf

Read the strangely beautiful “The Two-Headed Calf” by Laura Gilpin, generally considered a poem, but it feels like a microfiction to me:

 

 

The Two-Headed Calf

 

Tomorrow, when the farm boys find this

freak of nature, they will wrap his body

in newspaper and carry him to the museum.

But tonight he is alive and in the north

field with his mother. It is a perfect

summer evening: the moon rising over

the orchard, the wind in the grass.

And as he stares into the sky, there

are twice as many stars as usual.

 

Now write your own micro (try for 75 words or fewer), perhaps involving a strangely beautiful creature, real or fictional, and emulate this structure: “Tomorrow…(then) “Tonight…”