Threatened by abundance, the ranchers
with tightfaced calculation
throw the bawling calves into a ditch and
shoot them in order to fatten the belly of cost.
The terror of the squandered calves mingles
with the terrible agony of the starving
whom their dying will not save.
Of course, the killing is “quick and clean”;
and though there is no comparison reminds us
nonetheless—men women children
forced like superfluous animals
into a pit and less than cattle
in warcrazed eyes like crazed cattle slaughtered.