I woke two hours early
and heard Dad’s voice quivering
like the rain on the windows
as he yelled upstairs,
“Get up boys, we have a cow dead.”
I could hear Mom pacing
down our creaky hallway
as I slipped on my clothes.
Dad led us to the back of the barn
where one of the cows lay—
her head was twisted back
touching her side. Splintered wood
and rusted sheets of roofing tin
were strewn around her—
she had broken her neck
on the barn wall
while feeding.
Twelve inches of white oak
pegged with poplar
smashed her bones,
smashed everything.
Dad lifted her head.
She’d eye him carefully,
only for a moment,
before her head wavered down
to the dirt floor.
She laid there, quietly alive,
as we discussed what to do.
We rolled her over,
propped her up.
Every time we straightened her neck
we listened to it
crackle as it curved
back to the bed of dirt
damp with rain.
“I don’t want to do it,”
I said, touching
her clay colored skin.
“Neither do I,” my dad answered
“I’ve killed too many already.”
Tristan said he’d do it.
Dad told him where to shoot,
behind the ear
towards the forehead.
I walked to the pastures
and escaped
to the other side
of the barn.
One shot.
I smelled sulfur
mixed with shit.
Blood and hay pooled
under the cow’s head,
not red but black like oil,
steaming like the hole
behind her ear.
Dad put his hand to her nose.
“She’s still breathing.”
Five more shots.
She stopped breathing.
The herd watched
as we carted the mother
to the truck.
The driver hooked a metal noose
around the carcass’s broken neck
then winched her onto the bed
already piled with bodies.
Our mustang galloped in circles
and snorted.
The streak of white
running along her face
glowed like milky quartz
under the gray sky.
I know they heard the shots,
one after the other,
hitting and failing,
burning like a metal flame
behind the eyes—
born to be slaughtered.
Not in this way,
but what could we do
except load another bullet
and shoot again?