Let Me Tell You How It Was, by Anne Symons

The Census at Bethlehem, by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Netherlands) 1566.

​Let me tell you how it was
 
the night they killed the pig
squealing and screaming
beside the frozen river
while we waited to be counted.

The man on the sow
plunged and pulled back his blade,
the woman ready with her skillet
to catch the slide of blood.

Hot-iron smell coated our nostrils
and stuck in our throats.
Such a perfect piercing.
Such a fine pig.
​
We saw how the young girl
waited warm inside her cloak
while the donkey breathed beneath her
and the baby shifted in her womb.

Anne Symons

This poem was first published in Orbis Quarterly International Literary Journal.

Anne Symons: "I come from Cornwall and studied at the University of Wales, Swansea. I have worked in the UK, Sri Lanka and India, teaching poetry and drama to deaf children and adults."