Handshake

No wonder our sheep held still, seeing how his hands shook

as he hooked a moccasin over each foot with the one,

gripped at the greasy body of the clippers with the other.

And when he raised an arm to show he was ready for another

or reached behind him to yank on the string of the clicker

or handed me a fleece still warm from its owner

to skirt and roll and tie, and tuck into our woolsack.

After we’d helped him pack the portable rig back on the trailer,

and patched up the handful of nicks on our shorn flock

he took a mug of tea in the yard and spoke of the old times,

two-month tours shearing a hundred a day or more

eating lutefisk and dumplings in the crinkled fjords,

the dogs backing the sheep, each shed as big as a Devon field.

And evenings roistering in the bars, not to mention the maids.

How the smell of sheep dip sank deep to the bone.

Then he folded our cheque inside one corrugated palm,

and corralled my small hand in the other. None of us knew

how much of his handshake was thanks, how much tremor.