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Apr 2015
(NaPoWriMo Challenge: April 14, 2015)

Memory distortions introduced by the loss of details in a recollection over time, often concurrent with sharpening or selective recollection of certain details that take on exaggerated significance in relation to the details or aspects of the experience lost through leveling. Both biases may be reinforced over time, and by repeated recollection or re-telling of a memory.

So I’m upset, you see, sitting in a canary yellow truck
back in Harding County 1976. The boys have gone off
in search of cows. I can’t leave because they’ve told me
the yellow truck is surrounded by rattlesnakes.  

So much as my toe won’t hit the prairie. And truly,
I can’t remember anything beyond the truck.
The land is flat for sure but I can’t see the windmill
or the water tank. The earth has all but lost its load of folks.

There’s only the yellow truck, the long clutch, and those *******,
the snakes. There’s only the manipulations of boys
gleefully trotting the plains with their chauvinisms.
The flat ocean of grass and my yellow pitching vessel.

So I take out imagination like a newfangled photo editor.
I want to exit the truck for a minute and put a cow
on the scene. But I worry about those snakes.
If I place a scrub bush here, the snakes might opt for some shade.

I bring the cow back but I want a happy cow,
not a suspicious cow or a jaded cow.
Luckily I find an article online that seems useful,
“16 Signs to Access Whether Your Cows are Happy.”

According to FarmersWeekly my cow’s happiness
involves muck sieving and rumen fill. It says nothing
about California which hitherto I’ve been told
makes cows happy. Strangely I’m feeling better.
"16 signs to assess whether your cows are happy" Farmers Weekly Reporters, Tuesday 14 April 2015 (www.fwi.co.uk/livestock/16-signs-to-assess-whether-your-cows-are-happy.htm)
Mary McCray
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Mary McCray
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     ---, betterdays, JAM, Joel M Frye, unknown and 1 other
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