-the American bison called buffalo-

the first time I saw the Great Plains Buffalo,

was at the “Buttonwood Park Zoo”––

a small zoo in New Bedford, about 15 miles

from my house in Fall River.

Buttonwood Park was on the short-list of possible

Sunday afternoon attractions along with "Lincoln
Amusement Park", route 6 east,

Horseneck Beach, 88 south, Westport,

the “Shrine of Our Lady of LaSalette” up Attelboro
(where the ancient French women prayed the rosary for an encore)
and best of all, secretly planned extended family “Mystery Rides”,
the logistics of which were worked-out by Uncle Frank and my young father.

"Who knows where the “Mystery Ride” will take us"?!

after church, the cars lined-up at curbside at 1017 Bedford,
with Uncle Frank’s car in the lead position, followed by
my father’s car, followed by Cousin Albert’s car with young
wife Celia riding shotgun, followed by Romeo LeVesque’s car
holding his wife, cousin Edith, followed by the gang of Pieroni’s
in three cars, followed by the Gasperini clan, the crazy Petrucci’s,
the Burtoncini’s and lastly, the Cippolini family, usually crammed into two cars.

this Sunday, the Mystery Ride ends at "Buttonwood Park Zoo".

that’s where I'd see the Great Plains Buffalo for the first time.
out back, a large fenced-in pastoral area is set aside for the buffalo to roam,

but a smaller pen was set for visitors wanting to view them.
from the busy walkway there’s a shoulder-high chainlink fence

and just beyond that, a higher chainlink fence enclosing the buffalo pen.

but inside this fence, five inch diameter iron piping,
chest-high to the buffalo, ran continuously along the interior perimeter.
the buffalo seemed docile, but once in awhile, one of them

would bang his monstrous head on purpose, into the pipe with a resounding clang.

and they’d grunt on occasion, but beyond that and the head-to-pipe banging,

they’d just stand there as if waiting for something expected.

their liquid eyes are round and luminous black.

their hair, golden-brown at the withers is matted and riven.

their noses are wide with wet, black nostrils where the grunting

seemed to have come from, but it comes from deep within instead.

the whole place stinks.

the dung covers the ground in there, it sticks to their hooves,

is plastered across their asses.

I count three Great Plains Buffalo in the pen as I see them for the first time.

I think they’ve come to understand where they are.

I fear they’ve forgotten where it was they’ve come from, hauled from afar 
to Buttonwood on a Mystery Ride of their own so that one day I could take a look.