Maids. Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Yesterday I saw an old fashion milk maid
coming out of the cowshed she carried
a pail of milk in her left arm, the grip so
firm fingers used to squeezing cows long
teats twice a day… and she was followed
by five cats with erect tails….

She is the last of a vanishing group of stout
women who smell of cream and honey.
She had an open freckled face and sunlight
danced on her Monroe lips; too late now
for me, milking machines quite obscene,
a Fata Morgana? When I blinked she vanished.