This poem is taken from PN Review 63, Volume 15 Number 1, September - October 1988.

Mother

Gillian Clarke

When the milk-arrow stabs she comes
water-fluent down the long green miles.
Her milk leaks into the sea, blue
blossoming in an opal.

The pup lies patient in his cot of stone.
They meet with cries, caress as humans do.
She lies down for his suckling, lifts him
with a flipper from the sea's reach
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