Not sure it even was a sheep shed;
three squat stone walls, the fourth
formed by the hillface. The stone, whiskered
with vetch, chewed to stubble and corrugated
tin lidding the damp hovel. We’d
scouted the spot in daylight and
returned on this thin road out, the
dark like thick stout, having drunk
just enough to wash us sombre and
awed. Three of us; Kathrin, Maria,
and myself kipping in any abandoned
hut with a roof. We’d swept the packed
dirt floor clear of dung and laid out
a tarp, finally daring to exchange whispers,
with the farmhouse a black bulk down
where road cut through the slope. Flashlight
clicked off, both fists under my chin and
realizing I was not thinking of come-ons
or sex but scared as a child when his
house speaks in the night. Eyes wide as
buckets yawning for light, listening for boots
bearing hard on the trail from house to
shed, the apocalyptic clang on tin
then the steep chase seaward, or —
silence — broad shoulders plugging
the space between lintel and post, blotting
out all but the skinniest finger of moon.
Our tongues pellets of waste with the flock gone.