Ode to a plastic cow

Three days after we laid my best friend
in the cold dirt of Reading Massachusetts
in the back corner of his cheap dresser
I found a plastic cow.

His rear leg was attached with an old band-aid
the spot painted on his back half scratched off
and his body, once off-white, now cracked and yellowed by the years.

No letter was left to explain why he sat in the back of the drawer
No words at all
Only the memory of a sun light on linoleum
two and a half decades past
and a realization of one man's great love
for a little boy.