ode to cows & clitorises
“The number of nerve fibers within the human clitoris has never been
officially quantified. The most often-cited claim is that the clitoris has
‘8,000 nerve endings,’ but this figure originates from a bovine study mentioned
in a book titled The Clitoris, which appeared in 1976.”
—from an article in Medical News Today published in November 2022
I imagine her: Bessie, a retired milk cow,
five years old & sent to slaughter when
her utters trickled too slow, intercepted
by medical scientists who couldn’t get
funding to research what they really
wanted to know. Bessie, stunned, then
exsanguinated like her beef-destined
brethren, tipped onto a metal table,
bony legs aloft with rigor: a woman
in dreaded anticipation of the embrace
of her cruel lover. Bessie receives
the scalpel instead, in her tenderest
of tender flesh, with science
taking census of her pleasure.
I think of Bessie, cold with death,
hacked insides sliced onto microscope
slides & remember the times a man
called me frigid & more besides,
who called me cow for a rebuffed
advance or less. Heifer, if he thought
me fat—an insult so unoriginal
as to be biblical.1 My own tender flesh
plush enough for a streetcorner shriek
but not a respectful fuck. If given no other
choice, I, too, would rather ruminate
in a field, ponder grass, & make lowing
moans after morning cocks or just
because I was feeling myself.
The dissectors need only count half--
nerves are thread parallel. They stop
at four thousand & multiply, an echoed
climax Bessie didn’t live to tell. Half
a century later, Bessie gone to dust,
surgeons count the nerves in the human
clitoris & find two thousand more. But
I could have told them that. Find me
behind a barn, in the hayloft, straddling
a lap on a tractor seat. Bull dyke, reverse
cowgirl—it’s in the names. We come
by it honest. Cows will let another cow
or heifer mount her before she’ll stand
for a bull & she’ll try to mount the bull
before she’ll stand for him to breed.2
I, too, have been a fat country queer
fed up with men & longing
for a willing woman with digital dexterity.
I, too, have bawled & wandered
in search of euphoria in a body
built for exquisite bliss.
I, too, have been known to give up
& give in, to take what I can get.
1. The Samson called his first wife—unnamed in biblical texts—a heifer in Judges 14:18.
Delilah cutting the fucker’s hair was karmic retribution.
2. The line “Cows will let another / cow or heifer mount her before she’ll stand / for a bull.
She’ll try to mount the bull / before she’ll stand for him to breed” is a near-verbatim quote
from the article “Reproduction 101: Basics of Breeding Cows and Heifers” from
Hereford World, published in March 2008.
officially quantified. The most often-cited claim is that the clitoris has
‘8,000 nerve endings,’ but this figure originates from a bovine study mentioned
in a book titled The Clitoris, which appeared in 1976.”
—from an article in Medical News Today published in November 2022
I imagine her: Bessie, a retired milk cow,
five years old & sent to slaughter when
her utters trickled too slow, intercepted
by medical scientists who couldn’t get
funding to research what they really
wanted to know. Bessie, stunned, then
exsanguinated like her beef-destined
brethren, tipped onto a metal table,
bony legs aloft with rigor: a woman
in dreaded anticipation of the embrace
of her cruel lover. Bessie receives
the scalpel instead, in her tenderest
of tender flesh, with science
taking census of her pleasure.
I think of Bessie, cold with death,
hacked insides sliced onto microscope
slides & remember the times a man
called me frigid & more besides,
who called me cow for a rebuffed
advance or less. Heifer, if he thought
me fat—an insult so unoriginal
as to be biblical.1 My own tender flesh
plush enough for a streetcorner shriek
but not a respectful fuck. If given no other
choice, I, too, would rather ruminate
in a field, ponder grass, & make lowing
moans after morning cocks or just
because I was feeling myself.
The dissectors need only count half--
nerves are thread parallel. They stop
at four thousand & multiply, an echoed
climax Bessie didn’t live to tell. Half
a century later, Bessie gone to dust,
surgeons count the nerves in the human
clitoris & find two thousand more. But
I could have told them that. Find me
behind a barn, in the hayloft, straddling
a lap on a tractor seat. Bull dyke, reverse
cowgirl—it’s in the names. We come
by it honest. Cows will let another cow
or heifer mount her before she’ll stand
for a bull & she’ll try to mount the bull
before she’ll stand for him to breed.2
I, too, have been a fat country queer
fed up with men & longing
for a willing woman with digital dexterity.
I, too, have bawled & wandered
in search of euphoria in a body
built for exquisite bliss.
I, too, have been known to give up
& give in, to take what I can get.
1. The Samson called his first wife—unnamed in biblical texts—a heifer in Judges 14:18.
Delilah cutting the fucker’s hair was karmic retribution.
2. The line “Cows will let another / cow or heifer mount her before she’ll stand / for a bull.
She’ll try to mount the bull / before she’ll stand for him to breed” is a near-verbatim quote
from the article “Reproduction 101: Basics of Breeding Cows and Heifers” from
Hereford World, published in March 2008.
| MANDY SHUNNARAH (they/them) is an Appalachian and Palestinian- American writer who calls Columbus, Ohio, home. Their essays, poetry, and short stories have been published in The New York Times, Electric Literature, The Rumpus, and others. Their first book, Midwest Shreds, releases in 2024 from Belt Publishing. Read more at mandyshunnarah.com. |