University of Northern Iowa

Waiting Sixty Thousand Years for MarsAuthor(s): Yvonne CannonSource: The North American Review, Vol. 289, No. 5 (Sep. - Oct., 2004), p. 13Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25127211 .

Accessed: 18/06/2014 17:51

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

University of Northern Iowa is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The NorthAmerican Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.203 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 17:51:21 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

RITA WELTY BOURKE

Dr. Oastin jams the needle containing the vaccine into

her shoulder, Dr. Hincheon calls out a number and

staples a tag in her ear. A prisoner opens the front gate

and the cow runs off, kicking up her back legs at this

unexpected freedom. Safe in the new corral, she turns to

look, her eyes wild, her tail twitching, her breathing fast

and shallow.

It's a sweet operation. All carefully planned and

executed. The two clinicians vaccinate and tag a dozen

cows in the next fifteen minutes. There's only one casualty.

An out-of-control Brangus hits the front gate so hard we

hear her neck snap.

"You don't see that happen very often," Hincheon

remarks. He motions for a group of prisoners to drag her

out of the enclosure.

Mark and I take over, and the work resumes. We're

fourth-year vet students, after all. We've vaccinated

hundreds of Texas cows. We can handle this.

Oastin watches from the sidelines for a few minutes, then

drifts off. He's promised to look at one of the bloodhounds

kenneled behind the cattle barn. Hincheon, finished with

his examination of the dead Brangus, goes off to find a

shady spot where he can return his cell nhnnp rails I

Mark sits on the top rail on one side of the

chute, me on the other, and we alternate. He

vaccinates, I tag, I vaccinate, he tags.

We're nearly finished when we run out of

vaccine. Neither of our professors is

anywhere in sight.

How hard can it be to reconstitute the

drug? I watched Dr. Oastin do it earlier in

the day. There are still twenty or thirty cows

waiting in the holding pens. I climb down

from the fence and go to the SUV, open the

chest that holds the vaccine.

Mark is leaning against the side of the pen, the heifer in the chute is bellowing, twisting,

banging against the sides, the sun is broiling. I remove one of the special needles that's

sharp on both ends. Push one end into the

water, pull water into the needle. Push the

other end into the bottle of vaccine. Inject the water into the powder.

The dry vaccine explodes out of the bottle.

A cloud of live vaccine swirls around me. It covers my hands, my face. Live brucellosis

vaccine. Airborne.

"Mark?" I call out, and instantly regret it.

If I don't breathe, maybe I can keep the

bacteria out of my lungs. Better to keep my eyes closed, too. But

then I see my grandfather sitting in his chair

in the kitchen of the old farmhouse, holding his head in his hands, rocking back and forth _

with the pain. I think about the undulating fevers so typical of the disease, the headaches that left him whimpering, the

torrents of sweat that rolled off him.

What will Dr. Oastin say when he finds out what's

happened? What made me think I could do it on my own?

Why was I so arrogant?

I watched him mix the vaccine with the water just a few

hours ago, and I thought I was doing it exactly the way he

did it. But I missed something, did something wrong. I reach up, touch my face, and I can feel the granules of

dust and the mist from the needle. I open my eyes and look

toward the enclosure. "Mark?" I call again, and my voice is

breathy from lack of oxygen. "Oh my God, Kylie, what happened?" He's there, beside

me. "What happened, Kylie," he repeats, but he already knows, he saw it happen, saw the burst of vaccine. He grabs

my arm, pulls me toward the nearest building. Then we're

in a bathroom, and he turns on both faucets and dunks my hands under the stream.

"Get it off your skin as fast as you can, Kylie. Use lots of

soap. You'd think they'd have a brush in here. Any cuts?

Open places?"

-1

YVONNE CANNON

Waiting Sixty Thousand Years for Mars

Through a sky slashed with fierce pastels the giant red disk halves, then slivers,

dips six degrees below the paling horizon, the cold sea.

In civil twilight, the black silhouettes

of two retrievers racing down the beach.

Approaching the dark absolute, where we no longer perceive the cooling sand, the glassine swells.

Where we cannot read the warning? DANGEROUS UNDERTOW NOT A SWIMMING BEACH?

and be perversely tempted.

At the seawall, its frieze of triangular graffiti lit for an instant by stray headlights,

we wait for Mars to rise in tandem with the gibbous moon.

Outshining the brightest constellations, the brilliant achiever

we've never seen so close.

September-October 2004 NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW 13

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.203 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 17:51:21 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions