The verdant ground,
lush with wet clover,
the air uncanny,
far too warm
that Irish summer.
Earlier that day
I’d seen two fairy rings
on the lawn. By noon
they had gone —
leaving no trace.
Hours still till tea,
lost in marmalade dreams,
I left the cottage,
opting for a walk
down the old path
that marked the outer field.
A stone idly kicked
tumbled forward,
leading the way.
It fled into the damp grass
that skirted the berm.
A dozen yards ahead,
loomed a vast shape,
oddly staid,
almost a mound,
rich dirt brown.
I took it for a wool blanket
or broad tarp spread out
over a ditch; perhaps
a workman’s rig.
Shy of villagers,
their thick brogues,
I twisted half-round,
but the buzzing drew me in:
a symphony of saws
severing some impenetrable trunk.
But, no, I’d guessed wrong.
No worker, no tree, no tools.
Just a large dead cow,
heaped beside the road,
its bovine form obscenely bloated.
The beast faced away,
its limbs turned like table legs,
the thick coat mud-stained,
its arched back crenellated,
an ancient creature’s spine.
The clouds above sailed
across her huge gelid eyes.
The jaw sagged, hung open,
frothed with stale chyme.
From the nostrils, black flies,
emerald-flecked, climbed,
then soared, orbiting the corpse
in a frenzied threnody.
The stench of decay was sweeter
than I’d have imagined.
Vote for your favorite poem and story at cltampa.com/writingcontest through March 3.
This article appears in Feb 23 – Mar 2, 2017.