A ghazal for the Iowa butter cow at the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery

The cow-sized cow we circle looks like marble but her
body is the soft gold she is prized for: six hundred pounds of butter.

She poses bravely in her dimly lit case, alone and far
from home, trucked in and shaped in her chilly butter jail.

We try not to fog the glass as we marvel at the tuft
of butter hairs pendulous on the end of a thin butter tail.

Her glass case keeps her safe from being forced to make
more of the gold she’s made of, though we see her butter veins.

They fork like white lightning and strain, filled with cream
instead of blood, around the globe of her low butter udders.

The plaque says she was made by Sarah Pratt and two
daughters. They did not give her a name, but her sculptors

say they sang and danced while working; they used their
bare hands to warm and shape her flanks, curve her butter back.

She remembers their names: Hannah and Grace. She waits
for them to return from Iowa to check the strength of her butter legs.

They’ll adjust the angle of her delicate tail. The butter cow hopes
they’ll gently sing again as buttery fingers smooth her butter face.