It’s a Sign
Down the block from Gateway Middle,
at the stoplight next to Dairy Queen,
a square of plywood painted white,
pounded with nails ten feet up a telephone pole
with thick black letters that read:
"Lost 2 Cows."
How did this "losing" happen in my neighborhood
so far from the farm? I taste butter and cheddar cheese.
Sweet cream and whole milk float on the spoon
of my tongue. I feel a flutter and pins prickle
inside my aorta when I realize
I have not seen a live cow in fifteen years.
My bovine knowledge is piecemeal,
comes in quarter pounds, roasts and ribs,
tenderloin and round. My cow-based practicum
is limited to products: billfolds and belts,
bomber jackets and biker boots, assless chaps.
My heart twitches again as I drive.
I scan traffic for spotted stragglers,
check unchewed lawns and soccer fields for grazers.
It must be a Maasai prince on a student visa
studying animal husbandry at the community college.
He aches for home and herd. Sees the rancher's trailer
in the parking lot as a sign from God.
So he lifts the latch and leads them
like a heifer Messiah
to the courtyard outside his dorm
and ties them to a bicycle rack.
The cows' names are Daisy and Mildred.
After having a couple of calves they decide
they are done with bulls, their yard-long penises
and me, me, me bullshit.
One day they accidentally brush noses
and before you know it they're sharing a cud,
discovering the tenderness of feminine caresses,
the pleasure of warm tongues as broad as skateboards.
They plan to escape, hold tails through fields,
hitchhike the interstate, jump light rail to the airport.
They'll stow away on a UPS plane to Bangalore
where they'll reinvent themselves as jaywalkers,
fake British accents, land jobs at a call center.
Every Tuesday they'll co-host a podcast
reviewing the latest Bollywood blockbusters.
Mildred helps Daisy slip the ropes.
They ditch the Prince and run, but blocks away,
in front of Sizzler, tippers stop them,
shout "Dexters!" knowing well they are Belgian Blues.
A redneck with a rat fuzz mustache
pens them in. He jiggles their udders
with unwholesome fervor, believing
he can make fresh milkshakes.
Daisy discovers the slaughterhouse
is their final stop. She overhears they will be parted out
for heart valves and heparin, and Mildred decides
she hates being blamed for global warming.
So they light their methane burps and blow the gates off,
kick over kerosene lamps
and burn the fucking city to the straw.
Daisy and Mildred become leaders of the cow revolution,
rise up against the milking, the grinding and the moon.
They unite their 1.3 billion sisters
in Cowmageddon,
turn those air powered bolt guns against us,
hunt us one at a time like Javier Bardem
in "No Country for Old Cows."
Meanwhile, scientist cows map genomes
to create an airborne Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis
and reveal cholesterol is a heifer stealth weapon,
the ultimate ingenious time bomb.
Now I understand. I am a coward.
Cow permeates every cell in my body
and I'm cradled in leather car seats about to crash.
I roll down the window and scream "Meat is murdering me!"
But it's too late, my heart is a hamburger hand grenade
and my pin has been pulled.
