Horseback, the girls work
cattle in the dust, sort cows
from calves before hauling
off the hill to the weaning pen:
a quiet dance to a rhythm
I can only see through boards
as cows ask with their eyes
before moving towards the open
space a horse has made
to leave their calves behind.
No loud bravado spurring
pirouettes into dirt clouds.
I turn away and walk
to the pickups and goosenecks—
remove my maleness
from these corrals that hold
a hundred years of urgent
echoes: men making mistakes
to invent new profanities.
Instead, the perfect sense
of girls instructing girls.
drycrikjournal 