"Marking the Lambs"

Click here to listen to Kimberly Johnson read this poem.


As crickets geiger-up for spring, we corral
the ram lambs. They stutter and dense against the fence
wheezing for the ewes. Down wince,
down retch: up one and flip his back to mud,
knee to sternum. The banded tail will black
to wizen, prune off easy. But marking is all trespass:
thumb the soft belly to pop the scrotum out, then lunge and turn
the mind away, teeth working, working, to snap back
and spit. I try not to taste but I am
all mouth, all salt blood and lanolin. I hear
their bleatings through my tongue. They call it marking
for the tooth-scars on the belly, but when I speak
tonight, my words will sputter and decay, and when try
to say your name I will pronounce it elegy.

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