Ariella DiFabio

A mother sits, still within a field
each breath rustling the ryegrass;
her wool keeping the warmth sealed.

A limp leg rests as a shield
for the lamb that is destined as her last;
her aging body refusing to be healed.

The wind, too restless to yield;
dirt wracking her face like pellets of glass
and before dawn arrives, she has keeled,

her last determination steeled,
laying atop her child before she can pass,
and in the silence of the sunset her fate is sealed.

When morning comes, she is wheeled
out by the farmer, crass
with the terror of time; left reeled

from the loss, sits a lamb in the field.
Surrounded by an indent of grass
from where a mother once concealed
a love she had just revealed.