Washed Clean

Abstract

Washed Clean Ann Leamon (bio) Springtime on the Maine farm where I grew up meant melting. The smell of manure and mud mixed with the tang of smoke as maple sap boiled off to syrup. It meant lambing, too; my mother waking at two in the morning to check on the ewes. Most of them, dirty white skeins of unspun wool on skinny black legs, birthed their twins without trouble, even in the dirt-floored lean-to, but Granny, the matriarch—a scruffy, stubborn blend of unknown breeds—had triplets year after year. Sometimes the three could manage; alternatively, we bottle-fed the smallest, keeping it in a box behind the kitchen woodstove. In the dark March nights, often with snow or freezing rain, my mother pulled on her boots and jacket and checked on the sheep. Granny always lambed between the checks. One night during a fierce snowstorm, Granny lambed. In the harsh light of the two a.m. flashlight, Mom found two tiny figures, snuggled against the old ewe just as they should be. Maybe, this time, she’d only had the two. But at the morning feeding, under a drift of snow, we found the third, a cold scrap of pure white fluff. Oh, lamb of God. All creatures great and small. Remembering James Herriot, Mom put the small body in a bucket of warm water. It floated like a bar of Ivory soap. After five minutes, the lamb opened his eyes. [End Page 25] Ann Leamon Ann Leamon’s world includes venture capital research and creative writing. The sheep are gone, although she loves to watch them in the spring. In addition to writing a textbook and 150 cases for Harvard Business School, she has published in The Lyric, Hole in the Head Review, Live Nudes, Microlit Almanac, They Call Us…, and The Boston Globe. She holds degrees in German, Economics, and Poetry from Dalhousie, the University of Montana, and the Bennington Writing Seminars, respectively. She lives on the coast of Maine with her husband and a Corgi-Lab mix. Copyright © 2023 River Teeth