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 reddish-
brown 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
__________
Larry D. Thomas: “I have written poetry consistently for over 35 years. I write it first because I must and secondly because I love the challenge of working with language at its highest possible level: poetry. Since the age of three, when I made my first words with wooden alphabet blocks, I have viewed words as threedimensional, perfect building blocks for structuring into the towering cathedrals of poetry.” (web)
