I’m told my grandfather,
who was on my mother’s side,
used to drive loads of sheep
from the saddle
on a sheep drive.
And when I say sheep drive,
I don’t mean the latest
Apple iteration…
You know,
like all those operating
systems
named after wild animals.
I think they’re mostly
predators
anyway.

Back to our topic…

I don’t suppose he called them “doggies,”
the sheep,
that is.
But I’ll bet he had some great dogs,
the kind that pretty much did the job
on their own
without a lot of input from the guy on
the horse,
maybe just a finger point here or there
or some sort of code
known only to my grandfather
and the dog.

So he would drive
those
sheep
to the railroad terminal
where they would board the train
which would take them to market.
I wonder if they made it all the way
to San Francisco?
I wonder if they were told the trip
was sort of a fun
getaway?
If they bought it, would that mean someone
had successfully pulled
the wool
over their eyes?