Friesians

Curious cows in modernist hides
Come sinking into the mud to breath and drink.
They twitch their petal-shaped ears

With clips and tags in them. Tongues flick
Up to bare nostrils. Under long lashes
They roll their oily spheres at us.

When they slurp they start the ball-cock's hiss.
They nudge flies from wrinkles, mount each other's backs,
Squirting jets of grass.

Drooling and blowing in groups,
They approach only to back away from
The offer of a salty hand to lick.

Their patches are like maps of other worlds.
They kick their sides and fret their tails
Beside eight hundred years of brooding church.

Copyright © 2002 Anthony Howell All rights reserved
from Rattapallax
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission