At a barbed wire fence along East Fork Road
stands a bull. He studies balefully
five cows fenced in across the way.

We shift to cowside -- safer for passing.
"Nice bull," we call, "good bull," though nothing
will interrupt his baffled staring.

The cows, one black, four white-splotched brown,
in placid concern return his stare...
and which of us, really, will ever be clear,

though we stand and yearn at a similar fence,
how to make sense
of these barbed arrangements?



A Death in Trinity County

Fred with his Baghdad accent would sell me
milk, gingersnaps, when I walked down to pick up
the mail -- words, bills from the world -- only look:
today there's a posted sign to tell me

there'd been a highway accident -- "Fred
did not survive. We love you Fred" --
that's what the scrawl of the market sign said,
plus "Closed," like Fred's life, in a second rid

of whatever he'd prayed for, whatever he had:
a reach for a cigarette lighter, his eyes
off the road -- that's the theory -- and swerving he dies
in the Trinity River...his steering wheel did

him in, it crushed him at the neck.
The volunteer firemen managed to hack
him out, but who'll bring him breathing back
to the Ponderosa Market? The wreck

belongs to the junkheap now, and death
gets smiling, chatting Fred, who'd tease
the children who finger out pennies for candies,
who take no heed of out-breath...in-breath....

Barry Spacks



Barry Spacks has published two novels, many stories, and seven poetry collections over the years. He teaches at the University of California at Santa Barbara.