Sparkling bucolic
it’s not real cottagecore unless you’re up to the elbow in it

blindly groping down the blood-slick canal

as another contraction ripples around your knuckles

the cow is lain on her side kicking a mud angel
your hand clutching at the calf’s limp hoof

head torch slipping over your brow

as you affix the chain and brace yourself

to pull and pull until an amniotic spill
when the calf’s head breaches unbreathing

still you pull and bring the whole body wetly

into the cold world you drag the whole darkness

drenched newborn around so the mother can lick
caked salts and membranes from her motionless baby

as you rub her tired sides and say sorry girl I’m

sorry you’re alright you’re alright but somehow

the calf’s ribcage has started flaring a pitiful bellows 
for breath so you kneel again in the sodden grass

to feed a stalk of hay up one nostril until it sneezes

and smack its sides to keep the mucus moving

then leave them to it snuffling to learn each other 
wipe the afterbirth on your thrifted silk slip

your garden strange in torchlight the red flax bowing

like a cow to her newborn the wisteria blossoms heavy as udders

loneliness collapsing on you like a waterlogged tent