My Poetry: The Woman with the Knive

While Sheri and I lived in Duckwater, Nevada we attended a roundup to help.  A roundup is where the ranchers brought the cattle in from the range, to brand the new calves.  This was something knew to us as we were not native. 

The Lady with the Knife

Dust stung the air

the wind kept it there,

brushed up by horses and cows

in the isolated place; inhabited now.

They had come to mark the calves.

She had come to steal their laughs.

Her shiny knife glowed in the morning light

the calves, held down, could not fight.

And so that day, with a grin on her face

That overweight lady, made them grope.

The bawling calves, open to her knife, unprotected.

A calf's life, controlled, manipulated;

by blades and knives they lost their hope

and so not bulls, but steers corrected.

And on that day the bucket collected

the testicles, which had lost their potential.

How the losers were selected, I do not know

but from those calves was taken their bull;

They live only for their muscles

which will be nurtured, and then used

harvested, at the meat plant the are destined

there into packages for store and delicatessen.

But that day on the Nevada desert

Dead, dead were their nuts,

tossed like oysters into a bucket

and so their right to sire spent.

And on the face of the lady with the knife

A grin, as she harvested, and collected

Made you wonder what in her life

about men needed corrected.