The Dead Calf
I was in the world just long enough to leave it.
But brief though my life was,
The brackets of birth and death still bracket it.
I was registered on the scale of the earth,
My markings like inlets and archipelagos,
Black or white water, white or black land.
I cried out for my mother.
Her rough tongue scoured me clean.
I drank her sweet milk.
When my legs buckled, I lay underneath her
And when I began to sicken, I sensed her concern.
The boy came in, a bottle of pink electrolytes
Warm in his hand.
He’d cut the rubber nipple with a pocketknife
So it would flow faster.
He straddled me, forced me to drink.
Half the bottle went into my lungs.
I died before he could name me.
I was dragged over gravel as if I could no longer feel
And lay in the barnyard until the day
The man they call The Vulture came
And took me away.
I lay in the back of the truck with the stiffened others.
We whispered to one another
Like people taken hostage.
He tossed us into the quarry,
Covered us with lime.
I want you to know that
I lived, that I was once amongst the living,
If only for the briefest time.
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Thank you, Austin. This is lovely. Surely it will change my experience the next time I encounter death on a farm.
Heartbreaking and beautiful. This one really moves me. Thank you.