BUTTER COW
Emotions. Fear is a valid and constructive one, as good as any.
It’s like trying to find a good street-level parking spot
on Friday night. If three passes around the block
don’t do it, then maybe a visit to another town
is in order. Happiness is overrated anyway.
For example, everyone wanted to see the butter cow,
so we hopped in the Plymouth and drove to the fairgrounds.
The night howled with freaks, double-decker Ferris wheels
and unwed mothers biting bouffants of cotton candy.
Stock cars splintered on the track in front of the grandstand.
Flaming tires ejected and spun and whistled like girandolas.
There were decapitations and severed eyeballs
and nervous breakdowns. We were all going to see the butter cow.
In its refrigerated display case, it stood mooing,
all its flesh and blood and bones made of butter,
chilled to 45 degrees Fahrenheit. A woman stood to slap
more cholesterol on its voice, and she stood there
shivering in a red and white maple-leaf sweater
she bought while on vacation in Calgary in 1965. Moo!
More butter! It made us crave popcorn and late nights
hypnotized by the black and white television swamp thing.
It made us want to ski behind the Belvedere while wearing silver blades.
Mostly, the butter cow made me crave revolution,
even though I was six and relied on a steady allowance
of quarters I squirreled away in a plastic Baba Looey.
I feared the screaming matches between my parents,
and I hid in the family’s bomb shelter and ate the emergency
Frosted Flakes they stored there. I prayed to the butter cow,
even though the Reverend Huhok said it was wrong.
I prayed to the butter cow and then danced on the mown
summer night with my sparkler machine guns.