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Mary’s Children

               Gill Horitz


               Mary’s children are born

               in the barn. Labour is life’s work
               and the womb weighs a ton.


               She handles the chain tackle
               easy as a bell pull. Boulders

               face the way she puts them.
               Visitors bend and peer,
               put their fingers into fissures

               and declare.


               It takes  me.  Her feet paddle
               in dust all week.  What emerges

               depends on the quality of light
               and the mother’s own memory.











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