A Fish Hook [Barbed]
The wardrobe is shut tight, the latch awkward
as she lifts it, up and over the rusted catch.
Her fingers touch the jacket first: wool-worn,
fraying at the seam. The arm across her shoulder
limp now, loose, a useless thing. It smells of rain
and nettles – the river where he’d listened for the trout.
Reaching for his pocket feels like theft,
a spying on his river-watch. She finds the book
of coarse fish, open, where his thumb has turned
the waxy page: barbel, bleak, bream,
a litany of names, like Adam’s roll call,
stewarding new life.
.
The second pocket stabs her, a finger hooked
by metal, hiding in the feathers of the fly.
She holds it close, puzzling its form: exotic bird;
a scarlet moth; a question mark?
Published by Ink, Sweat and Tears (2017) Available here
Blackbird
In the rain-soaked garden, a blackbird sings:
music in the greenness. Two notes slide into one
bell beak rung out with insistent vigour. Spring clear,
even paced and without fatigue.
​
In the cloisters of eucalyptus and rose
I am aware of his song-filled presence, my senses
cross the threshold of his greenly garden space.
Singly he sings. His morning song is rain and dew.
Gulls glide beyond slate and stack; a cat walks silently,
nimbly across a wall; fish slide through green water.
A heron waits. Even here where the telos is death –
the bird-beak song sings out its joy.
Published by The Curlew (2018)
