You’ve seen them by the roadside, swishing flies
while munching in slow motion: so much mass
for so few twitches, yet so satisfied,
you simply have to poke them. Nothing else
could lump like that, so fatly dignified.
Let’s stop a second — right there, by the fence,
And try to make it snuffle. If we tied
its tail to something? Or, if we convinced
a bee — you know, the angry cartoon bee —
to sting that bovine bottom?… No, of course
I wouldn’t want to hurt one seriously,
but just to stir it up a bit before
it sags to earth again, the custard cow?
Sorry. It’s out of sight now anyhow.
About Kathryn Jacobs
Kathryn Jacobs is a poet and medievalist at Texas A & M - C with a doctorate from Harvard. Her volume of poetry, Advice Column, appeared in 2008, and she's had over a hundred poems published in a wide variety of excellent journals such as Measure, New Formalist, Acumen, Washington Literary Review, Poetry Midwest, Slant, Decanto, Mezzo Cammin, The Barefoot Muse, 14 by 14, and more. She also has written a scholarly book on medieval marriage customs, as well as sixteen articles. She has three children: two living daughters and a son who died at 18.
