By Adrian Gibbons Koesters

"These lambs were raised on all natural pasture and the meat is very tasty and tender. . .Brother Joseph, who is in charge of the lambs, is a humble monk with a wry sense of humor, a deep devotion to the Gospel and the monastic life, and the proper stewardship of the monastery lands, herds, and flocks." -- from an email advertising the sale of lamb meat from Blessed Harvest Organic Foods Company.

In a like spirit, especially if a daughter

will scrape the ground meat from a pita

and her parents despair over the lost

iron, seeping now monthly from her blood,

replaced by nothing that has ever held

iron, the mother, acting on nothing more

than an old fascination with lifting scabs

from her own body, may take something sharp,

and, where even the gynecologist will not

notice, will drain her own blood

into a red soup. Like lambs, she invents, holy lambs,

no desert to be strung out into, whole

or half, surrendered to the spirit market

however the buyer prefers it, with beans,

with lovely blooming vegetables, eaten

hoof and nipple, sucked marrow out.

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