The Use of Fear
after Temple Grandin
Wise handlers scare
cows just enough to make
them move in single file
but not panic – they’ve seen
the havoc fleeing cattle
wreak – anticipate & thwart
the drive to form a churning
knot around the boss.
They know the sadness
of the weak who don’t lie
down, but mill & pace
at the herd’s edge.
Hilary Sideris's poems have appeared in The American Journal of Poetry, Arts & Letters, Barrow Street, The Cortland Review, Connecticut Review, Fourteen Hills, Green Mountains Review, Gulf Coast, Poet Lore, Poetry Daily, Rhino, Quiddity, Salamander, The Southern Poetry Review, Southampton Review, Sugar House Review, and Tar River Poetry, among others.
