Jake's Flea Market

downstream
where the river moves
like reptilian skin moves

where the old man’s* python 
water muscles under the skin move

where water basks 
on the gravel riverbed between 
rising away pastures that lean
upslope to the hilltops

where beyond the lick of flood feedlots squat
   
the bladders and the bowels of a thousand   no
two   three   ten   twenty thousand   more
cattle are emptied 

phosphorous     potassium     nitrite     nitrate     ammonium nitrogen     
organic nitrogen     growth hormones     pharmaceuticals are pissed
shit
on the soil
into the soil
through the soil 
served on the watertable

overland
and underland the waste runs
diarrhea down into the veins of the river


*Old Man River in Southern Alberta, Canada