Excerpt from the book Making the New Lamb Take

Making the New Lamb Take



The skin is only perfume now.

It won't take seed and grow: cells


clot like sand, the vellus curling

from both ends in tendrils.


We have lifted it--careful--off,

waiting for a breeze to taper until air


is no enemy, dried sheets tugging

down the line. Underneath is flesh too


fresh for day, like eyes that spend

the hours mining in dream or lamplight


Working there, while at it, we hear

the mourning ewe from the bluish fields


she wanders--a harbormaster

who has ruined single-mindedness.


And though it doesn't do one stitch

of good, we think of her.


We cannot tell her it is not her doing,

knowing how our own don't always live,


or won't live well.

We cannot lie, even in our lingual tongue,


which must make muddled sense

to her, at best--one stray sound


among many sticks, then ticks off

into the chasm.


Instead, we bind the fleece

to the back of another: young, just


seeing, of a more prosperous mother

who's tired from all the mouths at her.


We tie the flapping ankles tight

with hemp, then hood the head over:


both mouths now silenced.

This disguise was never meant


for sight, so we guide them,

the old aroma warming underneath,


leash taut with mute resistance.

They say the ewe will come to love


him after weeks; I have my doubts.

But underneath the clouds—like clouds


themselves, led by contrary winds—

we lead them into fields


         and make them lie down.