Knees bent, a female giraffe
announces the arrival of her calf.
I’m bellowing. She doesn’t show,
the new girl, red and slick, my better.
The new me. Instead, a horn-like appendage
or ossicone, used for defence stirs and grows.
Itching, my forehead’s tender.

Not yet, the polished, eyeless stability
of the Medici Venus –an outcome delayed,
you might say, by a flagrant mix
of weak and strong, prone to cracks
under the pressure of loss. Dense, dry
weed on the high road, I’m all quivering sticks,
the future racing by – by – by.