Cow at Cud: After B. BrechtAuthor(s): Augustus YoungSource: Irish University Review, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Autumn, 1978), p. 191Published by: Edinburgh University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25477232 .

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Augustus Young

Two Poems

COW AT CUD AFTER B. BRECHT

Against the byre rail her dewlap strains.

She feeds on bales of hay, but is polite: chews thirty times at least on every bite, extracts each drop from straw that splits its veins.

Her hardened haunch and rheumy eyes are old; so much behind her, nothing to but cud:

the years have cooled the ardour of her blood:

she's not surprised by anything, I'm told.

And while she works her chops somebody draws

with sweaty hands thick flyblown milk from her; it could be clothes-pegs pinching on her udder, she isn't bothered by the farmyard raws.

What's going on is neither here nor there.

So, dropping dung, she takes the evening air.

BALLAD OF FAT MARGOT

If I should treat my lady with aplomb it doesn't mean I am an idiot

for she possesses all a man might

want.

I am her sword and shield and all she's got. When loose males are around I keep a stock

of peppered wine and plenty bread and cheese

to tempt them back with me. I amn't slow

to shower attentions on lone wolves who please to put their money down and take their ease

in the doubtful joint where we've opened shop.

191

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