by Christian Stephens<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Slayden & Toby liked ranch life most of the time except then came culling season & daddy<\/p>\n
tossed the stunner between them & said \u201cFIGHT\u201d & they tussled over it until Slayden<\/p>\n
got the upper grip & Toby bled like hell & daddy laughed & laughed and slurped Jack<\/p>\n
with his pitchfork fingers, so things had to be set straight.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Down in the pasture leftways & over the knoll with the bonfire palettes & old Christmas trees<\/p>\n
where barbed wire runs adjacent to a sewer stream & the Cheyenne skyline burns brightest<\/p>\n
lays the dud. Her teats & udders & feet & cancer eye wean raptors from flesh to moonlight<\/p>\n
& she gurgles curds & weeps syrup onto fallow, the perfect candidate for wounded Toby.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He slinks through dusk with an iron & the gun to where the widow nests in worms & the cold<\/p>\n
wind reinforces his motive. He starts with the shank then the thurl then the chine pounds<\/p>\n
his way to the muzzle & is merciless & is ceaseless & eventually punctures outnumber her sores<\/p>\n
& she can\u2019t tell the screams from the anger nor he the heifer from the beast.<\/p>\n
She gnashes the metal strings & Toby strangles the trigger, then a lull,<\/p>\n
then a great fervor.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Come daybreak daddy sends Slayden to find Toby & beat the little shit<\/p>\n
for not putting out meat scraps for the collies but really Slayden tosses rocks at the roosters<\/p>\n
& delivers a falsified report and really Toby lies in wastewater with an iron through his throat<\/p>\n
& an arm bent backwards fingers crossed devil-wise across his occiput. The carcass<\/p>\n
shudders next to him, torn wire flowing from her bones like twine on a ruptured spool. She\u2019s<\/p>\n
sipping.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n