The runnel that always spreads across the road
outside our gate is frozen now. I tread
carefully down the hill towards the farm.
Our in-lamb ewes raise their horned heads to look
as I pass by, then calmly feed again.
All’s quiet. The spruces by the riverside
stand black against the frost on field and fell.
The beck runs silent with an edge of ice.
A pair of ducks get up and prudently
fly off in a large circle, worriedly
conferring as they go. Wise: for death waits
along the lane.

Out of the turkey-shed comes Frank, who, old
and shrewd, has done the killing here each year;
he twinkles at me from beneath his hat.
“You got your pinny on, I see,” he says.
A captured bird twists upwards as it hangs
inverted from his knotty fist; it looks
snakelike, with a red, unseeing eye.
He holds its beak, and slices its white neck
until the blood in a bright shower falls
over his boots and scarlet-dappled straw.

Then suddenly the body jerks to life,
beating huge wings at terrifying speed
as though this creature that could never fly
would make a maiden flight to outpace death.
As it abates, Frank hands the storm to me:
“You tek this’un; see if they want some more.”
No time to shrink or wonder if I dare.

The women’s voices rise
above men’s in the byre. The heifers stand
neck-tethered in the warmth, and feathers fall
into white drifts across the muddy floor.
Shifting, the pluckers make a space for me;
Mrs Frank, wrapped in gloom as in her coat,
and blue-eyed Angela, her nose chilled pink;
my husband with his woollen hat aslant,
ripping quill feathers out at speed; and last
a woman whom I have not met, whose voice
drills through the down-filled air.
The children leap about us choosing quills
and offering to help, until a new
and better game appears, and then they’re gone.
Before long I have finished with my bird
and carry it indoors for Tom to clean.
Blooded, I wait for Frank to kill again.