Loading Animals

Our chute is makeshift: a few cattle panels and gates,
Cobbled together with rope and baling wire.

I have post-traumatic stress about the time
We tried to load the pig,
And we had constrained it and constrained it until it seemed like
There was nowhere else for it to go but in the trailer
When it stuck its nose under the fence I was
Standing on
And escaped.

So today when the three cows came towards the trailer
And turned around in a tight space,
I knew I was the weak link.
Stressed animals, their horns inches away,
Desperately contorting to turn around,
To escape this strange confinement
And to avoid the dark cave at the end.

Would this end in the animals running free?
Quite possibly.

Did I mention it was raining?

We four humans stood in the rain, dripping, stressed,
As we tried again and again to get the third animal in the trailer.

Finally we gave up for another day,
And were thankful for the two we had loaded successfully.