Sheepmen

The dog noses a steaming bag lumped like

an afterbirth at the open door.

Two kittens eye the danse macabre of

a leaf impaled on a thorn and the sky

is wet whitewash. God knows when it will dry.

What scarecrow's that an insidious wind

has stretched out on the broad of its back in

the furrowed reaches of the big brass bed?

Whose claws are those endlessly fondling

the folds of the bedclothes with a passion

never lavished on human flesh and bone?

Whose eyes are those that keep turning away from

the sparse light outside to the sparser light within?

Owen McSharry of Crieve is on his rack.

Today he waits for the priest to come creaking

up the narrow stairs past the hired woman and

the Sacred Heart picture on the wall with

the body of Christ in a box.

A sheepman like himself and the only one he'd

trust to rid him of this thing stuck like

a whinbush in the gap of his throat.