The Atlantic | October 2002 | The Ballad of Foot-and-Mouth

Contents | October 2002

More on poetry from The Atlantic Monthly.

Also by Lola Haskins:
Love (2000)
The Atlantic Monthly | October 2002

The Ballad of Foot-and-Mouth
West Yorkshire, 2001

by Lola Haskins

.....

Hear the author read this poem (in RealAudio)

One-ery, Two-ery, Ziccary, Zeven,
Hollow-bone, Crack-a-bone, Ten-or-eleven,
Spin, Spun, It-must-be-done

So they push them up—the ewes,
the wethers, the lambs, the tups—
With their yellow dozers like flowers o

Eena, Deena, Dina, Dust,
Catt'lla, Jweena, Wina, Wust

With their yellow dozers like flowers o
The ewes, the half-grown lambs, the tups
in mountains now with their legs stiff up

Ein, Tein, Tethra, Methera, Pimp,
Awfus, Daufus, Deefus, Dumfus, Dix

In mountains now with their legs stiff up
The wethers, the half-grown lambs, the ewes
And what is motherhood now o

One-ery, Two-ery, Ziccary, Zeven,
Hollow-bone, Crack-a-bone, Ten-or-Eleven,
Spin, Spun, It-must-be-done

And what is motherhood now o
as the ash smoulders in the backs of our throats
of the ewes, the wethers, the half-grown lambs

And the moors all empty but for the wind
that moans as it licks at the dry stone walls
And that's your motherhood now o

Spin, Spun, It-must-be-done,
Twiddledum, Twaddledum, Twenty-one

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Lola Haskins teaches at the University of Florida and is the author of several collections of poetry, including The Rim Benders (2001) and Desire Lines, to be published in 2004.