August 18th, 2009
Link • Poems, Tributes • 1 Comment
Larry D. Thomas
STEERS IN SUMMER, LOWING
Against a backdrop of blue heaven
and mesas hot as blacksmiths’ anvils,
still stunned by the musk of men
who castrated them as calves,
they blanket the bleak range
like an unrolled scroll of reddishbrown
parchment scrawled with a savage
calligraphy of horns. Tails lash
hides so sunstruck they’re tanned
alive on racks of ribs
guarding hearts and the grand
bellows of lungs. The nubs
of grass they grind with giant molars
are but straw they burn to fuel
their hellfire breath. The lavenders
of the evening ahead are cool
foreshadowings of their fate
of cold storage lockers on whose dim
hooks they’ll sway as sides of meat,
drooling the mouths of those who fed them.
–from Rattle #30, Winter 2008
Tribute to Cowboy & Western Poetry
“Steers in Summer, Lowing” received a 2009 Spur Award Finalist citation from Western Writers of America.