Eight Maids-a-Milking
 
Lord knows what happened when
he double-clicked on ‘Ornamental Milkmaids.’
He swears he only ordered one.
 
On Monday, eight cows arrived. They clattered
 down the ramp and he signed for them
 ( I was out at the time) then herded them
 
lowing, into our double garage.
He was upstairs, rearranging the loft
for the milkmaids when I came home.
 
As I slammed the car door I heard
desperate moos and who knows what
the poor beasts would have undergone
 
had the milkmaids not tripped down the path
in their snowy aprons, each clanking a pail
and calling the name of her favourite cow.
 
I managed to activate the up and over door
and the cows came swaying out, teats hard
as carrots. The garage smelt like a city farm.
 
From that moment life changed; vets’ bills,
the milk round, experiments with cream,
lines filled with petticoats. We woke at four.
 
As time went on, the  three-legged stools
made holes in our lawn, already threadbare
from grazing, and something was happening
 
to the milkmaids. They grew listless and wan.
Most evenings we found ourselves
hosing the stalls while they went clubbing.
 
In the end we made rules. They must only
go out at weekends and and be back by eleven.
We urged them to mix in better company.
 
Then luck took a hand and I wept through sheer joy.
Eight fairy-tale weddings to leaping Lords, cows
happy in Cornwall, cars back in the garage.


Ruth Smith



Spam Sandwich

Every year Christmas creeps then leaps
the year’s span like spam makeshift

my father’d fry in batter; it was cheap
excitement especially his cooking it.

We used to prize turkey, its spastic
legs braced, throat ripped and murdered

but now it’s hens-come-home, bloated
with water, or battery Bernard Matthew’s

pre-packed and calibrated, trundling off
running machines that exorcise all

moral decorum; so nothing sacred, nor chuffed
for treasuring the treat beyond our Fall,

just hi-tech, hi-risk spendthrift, hi-di-high-ness ranks
this holiest of times replete truly with sans

this, sans that, sandwich merely cups
the long-lingered year’s stagger to its stop.

Dianne Aslett




*Ruth Smith says: “I used to teach English but now spend my time travelling and writing poems. Poems have appeared in several poetry magazines, most recently ‘Magma’ and ‘Orbis’. Other work has appeared in anthologies including ‘Entering The Tapestry’ produced by The Poetry School. One has recently been accepted for an anthology in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support.”

*Dianne Aslett says “I have been writing poetry since I was young and
have had a modest number published. I regularly perform my poetry in
local Birmingham venues.I have been a school teacher and now I am an
Energy Field Healer.  It's quirkiness that makes life worth living.”