All between a cow and daylight,
she broke your collarbone,
a long bumpy ride on a dirt road
to the asphalt, to Emergency—
and we sink pipe and steel
for tomorrow’s taste for beef.
It could be a moonscape,
bacon-frying buzz of welding rod,
family of oak trees frightened,
unable to run. Well-scattered
somewhere near, we will watch
the future learn to work together
in these corrals: cattle, horses,
men and women—branding calves
far-removed from this crazy world.
