Clinging
Paula Bohince


The dirty sheep cried all night for her mate. In her stall,
a comprehensible world of straw, mushrooms bluish in manure,
long hoof prints of her husband yesterday shuttled away
with three others. This, and the stubborn feathers of the grouse—
lilac, blue-black where it was hit. I’m here too, stripping
the bird of her magic: upside-down, she swings by the feet,
crease of blood on her neck, locket of heart rapt inside her breast.
Over still-wet fields, the lucky ones hobble toward the illusion
of safety that woods allow, while the quills of the dead one
seem to dig in deeper, as if clinging saves anyone.