Rosie Crocus Smith
Sacred Cow
Objectified
devotion.
Emotion.
A cow is not allowed
to be herself,
her quim is a repository
of isms
charges of violence
peace-talks, pillow-talks
making, taking, game-playing
craven
graven
image-shaking.
A cow is a some-time
thing,
deified
expressor, sucklor,
of the
whole damned creeping compounded human race,
every, invalid, one.
A cow is not horned or horny,
she does not skip pages in the
moonlight, or polish
her hoof on naked backs;
she does not eat butterflies,
bathe among lotus,
switch her tail at the foaming edge of the
ocean;
she does not lie, chewing the
fat, watching the slow drift
of clouds.
She swims far out to sea,
returns only when spurs
dig in her ears,
force a homecoming,
promotion
to a living death. Smelting, ringing in her nostrils.
Sacred cow,
I pour anger from my pores, moisturising,
lubricating,
juicing,
an iron resolve.
Page(s) 81
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