Sport 42: 2014
when a crayfish could feed 6 men
when a crayfish could feed 6 men
when a crayfish
could feed 6 men
my mother bought
an astrakhan coat
cross cut on the straight
like the Volga
it swam in temperatures
below—30
after the ice swallowed
her favourite horse my mother’s
astrakhan coat became smarter
and made decisions
like what she should wear
at times I believed the coat
was half animal half
native plant with my mother’s legs
and it seemed right that she bore
the angels of stillborn lambs
for the heavy fashion of Russia
yet though the coat
cracked the small change
it was when my mother’s money
stretched beyond the frontier towns
that she no longer wore
what after her funeral seemed
little more than a fleece