she returns with the herd: distressed
no longer pregnant where is your calf?
asks ron – how can you lose a baby?
girls, he asks the others, where is it?
for everyone knows when a bovine
birth is in the wild the others circle and
watch (curiosity? protection?) he sends
out pasture search parties his grandkid
age nine hears a faint bleat finds the
infant in tall grass on the far side of a
barb wire fence it must have rolled under
at the moment dropped been inaccessible
grandkid with some difficulty lugs it back
to the barnyard returns it to its grieving
mama who licks it, noses it to a swollen tit
©2019 Jacqueline Jackson
This article appears in Sep 5-11, 2019.
