Gerard Lee: THIRD PRIZE Fodder

A dozen ochre clegs rise heavily from a cow-flop
shaped like Italy. Man and dog pass.
The clegs rearrange themselves around the dung-trough,
frantically, before the July sun can evaporate

the glistening sheen of piss-grass soup
pooled in the fresh skit’s concave.
(A solitary poet-cleg rubs his hands, watching
from an after-skite that could be Sicily.)

Beyond, an archipelago of Sahara-pats,
crisp and impenetrable as meringue, till
four and twenty jackdaws’ beaks in a pie
burst it wide. They flitter the shit-stuff,

stripping sheets from the maggot-nursery
in an orgy of love and dark juice.
From the far corner of the field,
cows come singly down the narrow path.