Feeding the Lambs
I
We do the orphans first, before our own breakfast,
mix the powder rich, because we’re mothers,
not farmers, take time to fill the bottles fairly,
cannot bear that one should miss out, go hungry.
They know the yellow bucket, tumble down the field
in sodden lumps, yelling for food, mob our legs
as we fumble with latches and feeding frames,
clumsy and laughing in the muddle of lambs.
When each finds a teat, they cham at it lustily,
legs and wet bodies jumbled. We wrestle them
into a neat blissful row, eyes, mouths, minds tight
on a fat-belly dream of warm milk. Satisfied,
for as long as it lasts on the March hillside,
all tough muscle and ecstatic tails.
II
Later we trek to the main flock,
folded away down the valley.
Our boots suck mud in gateways,
drag dark trails across the wet fields.
Whilst the collies hustle, work out
their moves with the ease of experts,
we are clambering over stiles,
awkward with buckets and middle age.
One lamb sees us coming, spreads the news
in a bleating frenzy; but the ewes are wary.
Yesterday they fed from their farmer’s hand,
as she named each one. We smell of towns.
They watch us slot-eyed, broadside on,
fearing the worst.
Page(s) 43
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