My Aunt's Advice
Find something stable, an upturned crate,
to sit on in a shed smelling of bedstraw
and sweet cicely. Don’t forget, a goat
will eat anything, even your hair
when your head’s down, wedged
in that miraculous, triangular cavity
between her haunch and belly.
Latch onto her udder, that two-fingered
fat pouch you are coaxing milk from
like emptying a bagpipe left out in a downpour.
And remember she’s a prankster, a dancer
on tables. If for a second you waver
from watchfulness – lulled, as you are,
by the steady rubbery drumming –
she’ll pick it up, put the hoof in.
But it’s only innocent devilry in spite
of those cloven toes. She wants you
to notice her, nudging the bumps
of her horns into the crook of your arm,
smelling salty and sweet, a cream-
cheesy scent, like a baby’s sweat.
Page(s) 39
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The