Guest Poem by Cathra Kelliher

Cathra Kelliher grew up in Montreal having spent her early childhood in Nairobi. She now splits her time between London and the Isle of Harris in the Western Isles. She previously spent 18 years renting a flint farm cottage on the top of the Downs in West Sussex. She has only recently begun writing for publication.

we sat holding the lamb

we sat holding the lamb
Richard and I
the field soft about us
cold coming on below the ash trees
and the farm buildings
silent as flint through the arrow slits

how slight it was
and how meagre the pull
of its miniature mouth on my finger
a smear of birth blood
faint tap
of a heart in my palm

steel wool skin
over a bag of bones
light as a thing I could fold in one arm
swinging
home across the Downs
small drama at evening

though drama still
the sodden grass
fluorescent, longbow air
drawn taut
and the chance
a tender weighing