Bull Wall: American Royale, Robert Morris

Have you seen this wall,
steel cut in Kansas City
where bulls stampede
their empty shadows
through two thicknesses
of corten welded at the x?

The ones in front
break with hooves,
ready to gore their two-pronged
crowns if their might
doesn’t tumble them headlong
to somersaults spearing earth flesh
instead of us.

And others pause to look on,
lesser kings in cowboy land
still muscled enough to do the job.
Like us, filled with the fury
of our shadowed history,
horned royalty brought to the prairies
caught in the factory’s metal mural
where the charge goes on.