21 COWS STRUCK BY LIGHTNING
m a r j o r i e   m a d d o x   ~   w i l l i a m s p o r t ,   p e n n s y l v a n i a

On their way to high-jumping the moon,
things got cloudy. Night moved to a deeper dark.
Sky called all cats away from fiddling
to rain down with the dogs. Hail shattered
dishes and spoons. It was a muddy affair
with lots of yelping and soaked tails. But those cows,
their moos the low moans of thunder, suffered most,
their barometer tails on the blink for this, their final downpour.
It wasn't in those stories repeated at bedtime:
the shock-yielding electricity, the slaughter of blood,
the sizzling bovine skeletons.

Listen, those of you in and out of fiction,
vegetarian or not, trust nothing
with letters and type -- a storm in a teacup brews
between syllables in all dry thoughts
not yet on the blipping map.

This poem was nominated for a Pushcart Prize

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