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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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