When to Dispatch by Julia Bouwsma
2013 Poetry Contest Judge's Selection
When to Dispatch
When it finds its way into the henhouse
when it quills the dog
when she snags her leg in the fence
and the others smell her blood before you do
when it gnaws the siding off your house at 3 AM
when it builds its dam in the road
when you crush his hind quarters
with your car
when she births her calf then lies head lolling into the grass
too weak to stand too weak to nurse
after three days
when it won't eat won't drink won't lay
when an ear flick no longer holds off flies
when there's cancer in the bone
in the heart
when ribs snap when lungs are punctured
when the tail uncurls
when he breaks his back barn straw clinging as he
stumbles up the hill to sleep on your porch
when it's bleeding in your bathtub
after a week
after he pisses himself
pisses blood
when it comes to you on three legs
when she wants to die at your feet
when he tries to bite back
Julia Bouwsma’s poems and reviews have appeared in journals such as Colorado Review, Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, Cutthroat, The Progressive, Puerto del Sol, Sugar House Review, Weave Magazine, and Wisconsin Review. Bouwsma is Book Review Editor for Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, Co-editor of Shape&Nature Press, and Poetry Editor for New Plains Press. She lives in the mountains of western Maine.