Man Walking Cow | Carlos Reyes

He has saved her from four lanes of traffic
on the Inner Ring Road of Domluru
brushed her black coat to a sheen,
and dressed her up, starting at the tip
of curved upward horns, she could hook
the yellow moon with, to her well-trimmed
hooves that were the nails of a princess,
wrapping her in blood red, and green yarns,
elegant silk saris, and bleeding madras.

He leads her like a drunken bride
though the posher neighborhoods
showing her the quieter worlds,
humbly honoring her, his means
of livelihood, or simply to shame
those who look down on him
and his cow from higher windows.

Carlos Reyes lives in Portland, Oregon. He is a traveler and whether he journeys to Alaska, Ecuador, France, India, Ireland. Panama, or Spain, those travels inform his poetry. In September, 2015 he was a fellow at Camac Centre d’Arte in Marnay, France. Latest publications: Pomegranate, Sister of the Heart (2012), Poemas de amor y locura / Poems of Love and Madness (2013). His first prose book, The Keys to The Cottage; Stories from The West of Ireland, was published in 2015. Guilt in Our Pockets was published in 2017; Poems from South India.