Clearing the path

This truck used to be a bull not the actual
truck although I suppose with the chrome running
boards and stacks and AM stereo it was
a horny young bull but I mean

that here in the old lean-to on the sunny south side
of the barn was the stall for the resident bull the
minotaur of my childhood nightmares. Come near
the fence and he would charge and the look in

his eyes told you he could open the locked
gate anytime he chose and we would run screaming not
in the kid way of then falling to the ground and screaming
in laughter but solid sweaty fear so the whole backyard was off

limits. Except to the barn cat named fuck
I’ve forgotten her name I always knew her name
the things you think you can afford to forget in the
maze of your mind will do you in, that’s a fact

but that cat was fearlessly evil she would stir
up the neighborhood dogs and restless they
would pursue faster nearly snatching her
tail and then she would leap between the rails

into the pasture and the dogs would bay
bloodlust and the bull out of nowhere would bear
down upon them while the cat sat on the trough
cleaning her paws until her path was cleared to saunter

back to the porch to beg cream. She died doing that.
Led a pack of dogs to the their doom, dove over
the third rail and dropped dead of a heart attack.

She died doing what she loved most to do, died at the
pinnacle of her attitude. She hated kids as much
as dogs, loved only herself and my grandma
pouring cream. I still carry scars from her claws
I still fear her still want to be her.