lambs

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Here we are in a kitchen in Shropshire. Cry of lambs, scuttle of kettle. I’m finishing Kaveh Akbar’s collection of poems, Calling A Wolf A Wolf. The radio is on. You told me once that your family always has the radio on. You said that this is a mark of class. On Radio 4 today, they’re discussing the American Civil Rights movement. Martin and Malcolm and Black Lives Matter. “Racism,” someone says. “We have been on the right side of that argument for five hundred years. The system won’t birth justice anymore than a chicken will birth a duck.”

I finish my book of poems as this story ends.

You sit down across from me. You smile. You drink your cup of coffee. The lambs keep crying.

I think about how farming in one way or another has given birth to all of our favorite metaphors.

I think about how one way or another we are all seeking resurrection.