CRACKBONE carries the lamb
The lamb
bleats himself into silence

effluvia in the throat-hold, earthwarm—


Sheep cleaved
from the mountainside

Spore of sheep, wind-bred,
spread, springing up

in clutch & tussock, fun-
gal, many-footed, blight of teeth

Sheep at the sea edge, reef
of driftbone, saltwhite

the amniotic scree
out of which I walked
on the grey rock on the red rock


—Shepherd my tongue into the pen
Crackbone carries lamb









OUT OF THE AFTER-PASTURES
this algaeic realm—
scumfed, spawnclouded—spawns

in thickwater, quickfinned
in the virid stir
of pondscape, plantsphere,

the Changing, the half-
made, the more-fitted-for, the hy-

brid, by-
product
bride









REDNESS in the grass:
calf & leaf –

You walk out of the trees, hiding your hands.

Everywhere the mouths,
bloodglottal, stanched.

Everywhere the meatseed
pulses toward harvest.












Claire Hero teaches at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. Her poems have recently appeared in How2, CROWD, RHINO and Tinfish.






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