‘Win a flock of sheep’ said the advertisement.
‘Sheep Dip: an eight year old pure malt whisky.
You will find an entry form on every bottle.’
I will. I will buy the whisky,
I will find the entry form. I will:
I will win the sheep and I’ll give them to you.
Keep the flock at home
and let them graze around the house.
Kindly and damp, they’ll eat the carpet
and will start on the wallpaper too;
your interior decorations will be masticated away.
The flock is softer than soft furnishings
but when they’ve eaten all that they’ll start
on the hard stuff. They’ll munch their way
through the mantelpiece and everything –
your books, your manuscripts –
will fly into their placid mouths.
I know you. You’ll like it better without
all that ruminated stuff. You want
the woolly life, carding and spinning,
with only sheep for furniture and bedclothes.
The flock will find you out eventually
and start their blowing in your ears
and their nuzzling across your hair.
It will begin in the kitchen with a fleecy
brush along the backs of your knees.
They’ll surround you on the sofa
and drink out of your bath. Your clothes
will go into the three stomachs and in the dark
you’ll feel sheep nibble between your toes
and suck your toenails. They will graze
your legs, removing every hair with teeth
so precise and shy you’ll feel only
a mist of breath and lips. They’ll move
in a cloud across your chest, your belly,
face and beard – everywhere – cropped
down to a downy stubble, peaceful as pasture.
Soon you will be as shorn as a yearling lamb
and twice as happy, blissoming with the flock.
When I arrive, dressed as Bo-Peep,
I won’t get a look in. But by hook or by crook
you shall have them anyway: sheep fleecy, sheep shorn
and me lovelorn.
JO SHAPCOTT