Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

The lambs were still running with the ewes when we killed
the fattest male. Three lambs and one ewe had been penned
in since the day before (you don’t pen one alone
or they fret). ‘Turn him round!’ Then, quickly, as I held
his head and collar, Jackson stuck the butcher’s knife
into his neck, whereupon torrents of dark red
fluid gushed bubbling, frothing into a bucket.
It looked not so much like blood as mulberry juice.
(We’d wondered whether to wait for the rain to fine,
then thought, what the hell, and went out straightaway in
the blowing rain - which was making another Grand
Canyon in the pine needles, a new Hokusai
seascape. We had stuffed wool into the eaves of the
loose box to keep out the rain only that morning.
The oils from the wool stuck to our fingers. The dust
I blew off the books was precious. Once upon a
time they would be sheep vellum. Now they had narrow
rims of sheep oil instead at the top of the page.)
Jackson had decided on one of two brothers.
(The third was the lamb of the ewe, less fat). The lamb
did not struggle (couldn’t) or utter a sound. He
was the fatter of the two brothers. We released
the ewe and the two lambs, who went straight to the grass.
Jackson got into the race with the chosen lamb,
fastened a collar on his neck, then a rope, and
I opened the gate. Out he came, bucking, pulling.
I got behind and pushed him on his way. (Jackson
went on to the loosebox where the bench and the knives
had been made ready). I grabbed him by the back feet.
This was wrong. I was to grab his fleece. Then Jackson
got him on his back and bound his front feet, then one
hind foot to them. As the blood drained out and the eyes
clouded over and closed, the thrashing of his hooves
continued, a reflex action. I held him still.
Then there came the moment when, with many violent
rasps, he breathed his last, as if desperate to breathe.
Then Jackson started to skin him. First one foreleg
he slit and broke off at the joint, then the other,
then slit to the middle, down with a zipping sound,
and the lower legs the same, eased the skin off round
his tummy, then hauled him up (didn’t want him on
the floor if possible), with a notched bar and rope,
to a metal beam. We heaved and pulled, for he was
bulky and heavy, and his head, with its
enormous mulberry hole, still dragged on the ground.
Jackson set to work with his skinning knife, slashing
bit by bit, working the skin off, pulling between
times, exposing the glistening pearly fat and
often the rosy pink flesh too. I tugged the skin
at the neck, then, with a saw and a knife, we cut
the head off. We hauled him onto the bench. Jackson
cut off the balls first, left the liver and lights to
deal with later, rolled the fleece and pushed it into
a feed back, cut and tied oesophagus and wind
pipe, then slit him right down the middle and let all
the pearly green innards slide out, and stomach bag
burst its green flood on the floor. Clean and separate.
Beads of black shit. White lace caul. I held back the two
thin curtains of his stomach while Jackson foraged
round inside with hand and knife. We dragged him next door,
still very heavy, but now without the bulge of
stomach. Coming back, we were about to go through
the gate when Jackson said ‘Spuds!’ Went back for a fork,
squelched around in wellies in the spud bed to find
a likely forkful of spuds. I picked them out of
the clarts and put them in a bread bag. On the way
home Jackson emptied them into a torrent of
rain by the roadside and let them tumble clean in
the water, helped on by his boots and my fingers.