I cleaned up the corral, long abandoned,

Setting gates, clearing brambles,

Digging up trashy bits of rusted metal,

Remnants of an enterprise abandoned,

Telling stories I couldn't hear.

Though it looked like hell

I had a barn-lot fit for cattle.

I called the heifers over.

They gathered at the open gate,

Suspicious, weighing the odds.

067 was the first to cross the imaginary line

As I knew she would, wary 

At the unfamiliar scents, and my presence,

Though she soon forgot me,

And with nose to the ground, explored.

The rest milled about the gate, ill at ease,

They would come in once I left,

Casually, with feigned indifference,

With all the cool of James Dean,

World-weary, yet curious.