Ram’s Head, Blue Morning Glory, 1938
by Kinsale Drake
after Georgia O’Keeffe and the Livestock Reduction Act
As she walks, the dog marches ahead. Morning
fingers her dark collar. In each photograph,
her eyes, lowered. Her throat, holding clouds.
She can’t believe her fortune: felled sheep
and creatures crushed everywhere into
the earth. She plucks the best remains
and mounts for study. Cools the colors.
Paints the yawning blue of a flower’s eye,
and perhaps we forget how the skulls
speckled the cliffs of Abiquiú like drops
of blood. The tea is ready. She blows
the steam. Paints the creamy, gaping
sockets, the bleached brow brighter
than a sun. The starry flower begs a balance.
What is missing? Not the dark bodies
beyond periphery. They have long since
extricated their remaining lambs. The canvas
hangs finished as trophy, without the mess
of clicking bones. No weeds allowed
unchecked. No other vermin sluice
the sand. No one to wonder where
the bodies have gone, or why there are
so many. And after the daily harvesting,
why the lambs all have no heads.