The Coldest Days
COLLEEN MAHER

It's funny:
On those frigid days
When you wake to a crust of ice on the water trough
And the whisper of dead leaves
Skating across the hard snow
And flocks of crows
Admonishing from fenceposts
The only time things are ever black and white . . .
On those very cold days
Everything smells.
 
Everything smelled before,
of course,
But in the cut­glass air
The organic smell of the cattle
And the harsh diesel haze
is cutting.
 
The wind in sanguine gusts
Swirls around the ankles of
The man in the big hat
But I am safe in the feverish island
here in the
Red, Extended Cab, One­Ton, Flatbed Pick­-Up
 
The cattle moan and bawl
Their hides are scruffy
Their tails are pendulums ending in balls of dirty ice
Their ribs are prison bars.
Molasses scented feed pours
into the old troughs
Ice resting where the bottoms are not rusted out.
The cattle swarm over the feed, tossing their heads
An ocean,
A fog of warm bodies and warm breaths
and car exhaust.
I lean out the window to breath that winter perfume
And I drop my glove.
 
No one steps on it,
But no one picks it up.