On the fringes of Fort Worth
A man sat above a wooden gate
Checking and counting cattle
Before a sluice which shut the sun
Forever from their eyes.
Sudden-like, no warning at all
The man jumped down
Into the narrow passage
Onto the wide back of a mud-spattered
Black and white longhorn steer.
Before others could stop him
The man backed the heifer
Through the gate
To one of the side yards
Through the larger pen
And out to the vast round-up field.
Scared but determined
The checkerman slid down
From the fattened steer
Yelled at it, his arm showing it
Its freedom in the distance.
The animal seemed rooted.
The man removed his jacket
And swatted the steer on the flanks.