Cows by Mandy Huggins

Mandy Huggins is the award-winning author of the flash fiction collection, Brightly Coloured Horses. A selection of her longer fiction appears in Death of A Superhero (InkTears), and her first full-length short story collection, Separated From the Sea, will be published by Retreat West Books in June 2018.

 

cows

 

I follow the rutted path,

my boots snapping ice

as brittle as spun sugar

 

When I reach the five bar gate

the cows emerge from the mist,

black-faced and liquid-eyed

 

They shuffle from hoof to hoof,

paw the frost-hard earth,

and watch me, silent,

their breath hanging in the cold air

 

Later, in the fug of the cafe,

I remember their velvet muzzles

as I watch the steam rise from coffee

as dark as their flanks

 

 

mandy huggins

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poems