【by Maggie Ondrey】

Like a cow that grows tufts of hair over branded scars but never over the ones From rolling around in mud, grassy slopes and understanding hills You are not my owner, you cannot find me in a crowd and send me off to the slaughter- That I will become the version of myself that is so unrecognizable

That as a cow I will have a slippery silver hoop through my body, And when I kick up dirt, try to find what is buried Out in the pasture where I pushed you off of me For the final time in late December when the ground was hard, The mud had dried up and when you slammed me to the stiff earth It felt like the dirt had cracked and I could just plant myself there-

The silver will whisper as it rubs against my body And remind me of what is mine, where I am, what it means to be beat Into submission and hopes of meat packaging, to just give up and let a liquid version of me Collect on the sides of vacuum sealed packaging and make pools of red agony. Push the dirt around with my hoof pointed to make a C To find out that this is my pasture, my ring, my body.

So instead I will sit and think with all tufts of hair growing in That look like freshly fertilized grass, ready to push its way out. About how every time you go to the supermarket In hopes of finding someone like me, That the meat shelves are empty and you starve to death trying to fuel your weak and body hungry body on women like me.