From the book - Richard Smith

From Not a Soul but Us
Richard Smith (Bauhan 2022)
Yorkshire: Autumn, In the Year of Our Lord 1349

1.
Our village: plague’s been here since summer. Me:
I’m twelve. My family: no one left now. No
more food. Walk: manor: sheepfold: gate. You see
me, wag your tail, bark. The steward turns. “So,
your father?” Nod. “The flock”—he gestures—“you
went with, he taught you?” Nod. He hands me bread.
“Tomorrow, take them up.” You herd me to
the barn and paw up hay to make our bed.
I eat, and give you half. You’re close all night;
being warm, and touched, reminds me how to sleep.
I dream my father’s hands. By the time it’s light,
mine know just how to move: palm raised: you leap
up; point: you run outside. What’s left to do
but follow? No one’s claiming me but you.

2.
A half-cut field: the flock can graze here. Yet—
you pause. Flies buzz. There’s something rotting. Smears
of blood across his face and hands: the dead
man almost trips me. Then I’m not quite here;
I’m back—two days ago?—that morning, back
at home: I woke when something smacked my head:
my father raised the broom—another thwack—
and coughed. Blood sprayed. “Get out.” He heaved from bed. 
“Don’t die with me.” He hit and hit. “You’re young.”
He drove me from the house and blocked the door.
“Set fire to the place,” he called, “then run.
You might just live.” I stumbled, lay there for
an hour, a night, a day, right where I’d dropped.
His coughing rattled, faded, slowed, paused, stopped.

3.
Then I come back to here, this field, the dead
man, you, the flock. It strikes me: we must leave.
We must leave now. I point. You turn your head
and bark the sheep toward home. I wipe my sleeve
across my eyes. My mouth is making sounds
that tell you something’s very wrong. Now all
of us—sheep, you, me—go careening down
the hill. I slip and flounder; twice I fall;
but soon we’re back inside the fold. I’ve cut
my hand. You sniff the wound, then lick, your tongue
so slow and soft, it’s like—I can’t think what,
just something that felt good when I was young.
The bleeding stops, my skin is clean and smooth—
yet you keep licking. I don’t want to move.