Poem: Feedlots and Football

FeedLots and Football

I

Twenty-seven  below at the feed lot

Along the Cache La Poudre River,

East flank of Ft. Collins, Colorado.

The dawn sky looks like blue ice.

Steam rises off the hunched backs of frozen cattle.

Loyal, the ex-con foreman who lives in a downwind single-wide,

And a few other  boys  use axes on the troughs

To get the water moving again. By eight everyone

Begs for an indoor coffee break to warm their hands and feet

Before trucking feed up and down the aisles,

Spreading hot reeking silage to the hungry stock.

Later, when the sun melts the top layer

Of manure and mud in the pens, not enough

To suck your boots off but enough

To keep you from slipping on the hard ridges

And breaking your neck when you fall,

It’s time to medicate and treat the bloat:

Run a steer into a holding pen, jam a steel cylinder

Into his mouth, feed a rubber tube down his throat

And be sure you’re not on the business end

When the trapped gas escapes in a hot hissing rush.

After eight or nine hours at two-fifty per,

Go home, strip out of your overalls on the porch,

Lather up under a hot shower until the smell and cold is gone.

Eat dinner, drink a few beers,

Watch some TV and go to bed.

II

Around this time in December ’72,

On a frozen Sunday afternoon

After forty years of failure in a dying steel town,

The home football team takes part in a miracle.

Steam rises from the throats of hulking players

And fifty-thousand roaring fans.

Down by a point to the archrival in a big playoff game.

With only seconds left on the clock.

The scrambling quarterback zips a desperation pass downfield

In the direction of Fuqua, who, even if he catches it,

Will be instantly tackled by surrounding defenders.

Instead, Tatum deflects the ball

Back toward Harris, the onrushing rookie running back,

Who, inches before it hits the ground,

Reaches down and snatches the ball from the turf with both hands,

Like an eagle plucking a fish from the surf, 

Soars thirty yards into the end zone for the winning score.

Pandemonium in Pittsburgh! Steelers win!

A city saved by the Immaculate Reception!

III

On Monday morning,

Steel mill and feedlot workers

Bundle for the cold

And go back to work.

No miracle for the livestock, either.

The players eat steak and celebrate,

Prepare for the next big game.