Solemn-faced, they helped
run the cable under the pickup
hooked to the red, homemade
tilt-bed trailer I paid
five hundred dollars for
thirty years ago, to winch
the Champion bull I bought
over-budget four days before—
his grain-fed weight,
the weight of all of it,
on the back-end lifting
as leveraged against the front
pushed down by the cable
that groaned, strained
against the grain as we pulled
him into place to haul
and cover with a plastic tarp
to have examined by experts
who couldn’t help him now—
who couldn’t help me call
the man who raised him.
for Loren and Terri
Oh, no!