Lambing time

You could read a book in this light! the boy cried
laughing at how the moon lit up the field
as his father moved softly from sheep to sheep
as they gave birth in the brilliant moonlight
to glistening lambs who got a lick from the ewes
and shook themselves as if they had no time to lose
and went straight for the teat and got down to work
and it was like magic, like something in a book
to the wondering boy who knew nothing yet
of the hour of terror in the abattoir
of machines for driving spikes through heads
of blood darkening on tiled floors
under brilliant slaughterhouse lights.

Published, 1998, in Snakeskin, February issue