Instructions for Lambing

Push your hand inside.
Feel a head, a nose, two legs.
Cup a perfect hoof and pull
until the leg locks outside the ewe.
Grasp the other foot and repeat.

Damp from dreaming, the lamb spills out,
curving into the night like a blood-flecked crescent moon.

Pinch the nose, make it sneeze, break the cord,
add iodine.

The ewe whickers and licks,
nudging the lamb to a trembling stance.
A straw-covered bambi
wobbling into life.

Sally Brown




If you have any thoughts on this poem,  Sally Brown would be pleased to hear them.