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Clover's In the Bottom Right-Hand Corner Doing the Best with What Circumstance Brought Her
The ruffle of fleece at her neck
makes her feel manufactured, not born—
brushstrokes of windswept wool,
all soft edges and curves
the color of old milk.
Her lips were no artist's accident,
nor the smirk as she lurks
in the corner more knowing
than any ewe usually dares.
Coy smile, a pearled necklace
of fur and her hind-end musk—
drew the brown ram sniffing
while a dirt-faced ex-love nearby
chews through the cud to find
whatever’s left of her.
Closer to the cliff than either,
she teeters, grazing weeds
like the dutiful daughter of lamb stew,
like she doesn’t know the cost
of this life: skin blistered by sun,
meat slow roasted to melt
on the tongue, bones cracked
for their marrow, dreams curdled
and spun into the itchy arms
of some strayed-from-the-flock husband,
all too eager to forget
the warmth of her body.
But Clover knows better.
Knows that sheep go one of two ways—
a fireside comfort or the fire itself.
Knows the herd will go
where they are led,
always too late to see
the teeth of the cliff.
She stands alone,
the day's last shadows
pooling at her feet
masticating through daisies
and regrets. And then she leaps
toward the yellowing horizon
gathering salt-wind in her wool
along with the cliff-kissed breeze
of freedom that promises nothing
but the opposite direction.
Copyright ©
Jaymee Thomas
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