Starve O’clock
The sharpness of hunger
shadows the downs. Kite quarters
with an opportunist’s moon-pale eye.
The woman threw food –
sky dog, it came to her whistle.
Afraid for their barbecues,
next door complain. Woman desist
or be afraid. Lost on them:
a raptor’s precision and talons,
the rapture of meeting the wild.
Kite sees the woman
come out of her house.
No whistle and empty hands.
The belly clock adjusts
as does the trust. Kite flies over.
Anna-May Laugher‘s work has been widely anthologised and has appeared in a variety of print and online journals; most recently, Lighthouse. Her pamphlet Blow This was published by Flarestack in 2018.