Produced by Dennis Camire
This week’s poem is by Ed Reilly, who taught for over 30 years at St. Joseph’s College in Windham.
A COW’S TONGUE
By Ed Reilly
A cow’s tongue is like sandpaper on
a hand, scraping across it to draw a fist
of oats, kernels of corn, into its mouth.
Across its calf, though, the tongue cleans,
soothes, expresses what might pass
for love if we could discern cow emotion.
The long, harsh tongue slides down
the calf’s neck, across its shoulder, toward
its thin, ungainly leg, wetting, curling hair
in one assertive, reassuring thrust
of what a mother, this heavy, awkward,
black and white beast, can offer.
Dennis Camire can be reached at dcamire@cmcc.edu
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