A BRIEF HISTORY OF COWS BUT MOSTLY VERY SMALL COWS

Pablo Piñero Stillmann

Years oh so many years ago like way before Christ cows used to be giant say the size of an SUV. We have less oxygen now so cows have been steadily shrinking—not really a bad thing. Journal of Biology: "Strong correlation has been found between species contraction & an expanding consciousness." We all know about the two-foot-tall Aberdeen Angus that learned to speak just so it could tell us the secret of universal harmony & how we were so floored by this shrunken black cow that we taught it some dirty jokes & sold it to the circus. What do you call a this & such that does that unexpected thing? Those types of jokes that your uncle told to dead crickets. & let me just end with the story of the one-point-nine-inch horned white cow that hung around Seneca's neck on a piece of old yarn (51-61 AD). Whenever things got bad really bad & Seneca mumbled say "This is getting pretty bad" the cow would respond "This is not really that bad." We’re talking the wisest cow in all of history or at least the smallest & all it could say was "This is not really that bad." 

Pablo Piñero Stillmann recently ended a year as a fellow at Mexico's National Fund for Culture and Arts (FONCA). His work has appeared in Ninth Letter, Electric Literature's Recommended Reading, The Normal School, Washington Square Review, and other journals.