SONG FOR BEEF CATTLE

To be whimless, o monks of melancholy,

to be continents completely

colonized, to stand

humped and immune, digesting,

redigesting our domestication, to be too too

solid flesh making its slow

progress toward fast food.

To feel our heavy heads becoming knock-knock jokes,

                                                   who’s there,

kabonk, Big Mac, to know our knees

are filled-in ampersands, things to fall on,

not run with.

To put all this to music – a bellow

which extinguishes the wolf, the long arc of its howl

reduced to gravity and spread,

ghostless, flatulent,

over the overgrazed acres.