by Ethel Mortenson Davis
I can’t remember
when I learned
to love animals,
but it was when
I was very young,
along with my three sisters.
Perhaps it started
when we were called
good-for-nothing girls,
forcing us toward
the animals.
It was where I learned
animals love their young
as much as we love
ours,
when the mother cow,
desperate that night,
cried in low,
hysterical bellows
for her dead calf.
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