HOW MUST THE SPUR-WINGED PLOVER
feel in this weather; this light brings to it softer seeing eyes for the plight
of the other creatures on this planet trying to make sense of love
in a climate that masks its ability to cause pain in a mist
of fine rain, so that, were you to look from a distance
of a few feet or three years, you might mistake
it for a kind of beauty;
kind of art;
kind.
LIKE SMALL FISTS DISPERSING
smoke, fog
made way for partridges
bombing their landings
like bad jokes;
displaced wisps
broke confidentiality
between the field’s
reception and cold air.
UNNAMED TRENCH, NEAR DARFIELD CLAY WORKS, CIRCA 1987
Of red
clay from this no insect
was created;
they built me, wedged my legs
kneaded air
from my lungs, I was thrown
and turned,
my thoughts became the colour
of beetles’
blood, vitreous fired and kilned.
From bricks,
boys built a tower from which
I blow.
