In France, the Charolais Never Listen

by Dwaine Rieves

Determined to outlive his body and two hundred 

hungry Charolais heads, my father keeps wanting.

He wants to keep wanting as they do, craving 

despite incredible bodies that come running 

when he bangs a bucket.  The cows can’t ever

get enough, so they rush the pasture’s rusty fence 

to ravish our neighbor’s good hoe-garden corn.  

Lust is typical for ivory-coated cattle bred to take 

the southern French sun, which the want in 

Mississippi outshines well beyond a spot 

where the barbed wire gives, so once 

the head heifer pokes a hole and others follow

my father cuts out yelling like it’s feeding 

time.  Foreign in sun-king fury, his wanting

voice makes the head heifer turn 

her vivacious French eyes back to the broken 

place where my father stands ready to 

welcome the voracious animals, forever and again—

white coats aglow, proud tails swatting the flies.