Sebastian Schloessingk: Two Poems
Cow Motif
A full udder thwacking (when the cow
runs for real) up against each cowside
in turn, loud as a beaten carpet.
Around a field gate, sometimes deep semi-
circular ripples, stormforce dried
mud waves: a minor mystery to set
beside corn circles. The motif
recurs in the frown ripples sculpted—
between and above cows’ wide-spaced eyes—
placid on the forehead. When not, but
coming at you, cows can be stopped dead
it’s claimed with a hard application by
thumb and forefinger pinchlocking
the nostrils, not easy mid-charge (though
something matadors might try under
the cover of a swirled cape). Unmoved
field bulls: the rough trade neck hump, but also
thighs elegant raised and rounded.
Overhang
A baby woken on arrival, from a deep
car sleep, was pronounced “out of sorts and trembling”.
She’s borne about at shoulder level, in the crook
of the arm, not only for (mutual) comfort but to be
at human communing level, parity of…
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