Giving the Big News

There were two kids like me
     and someone‘s curly-headed younger brother by the stream, in the mulch      
          of sparrow skulls, wet porn and  rotten blankets in the weeds.
 I whispered to the brother that
     poison rats, special ‘cause you can’t see them
          can’t feel their bite,
 hide in the branches all around, and you will know       
      if you’re bit when I rub the palm of your hand with a dock-leaf:
           your skin will  stain,
 you want to see green, if it comes out yellow
     you‘re dead – and I had a buttercup flower screwed inside the leaf.                             
          So after he’d turned his hand over and looked inside
  I stood and listened to the small screams
and the snap of bracken breaking in the dark
  get further away. And even now I don‘t know
     if there‘s a right way to tell somebody,
          a way to understand.




*Christopher Crawford was born in Glasgow. His poems, essays and translations have most recently appeared in RATTLE, The Cortland Review, Agenda, Eyewear,The Literateur, Orbis and Envoi.


This poem has previously appeared in Now Culture.