The moment when you catch the blackbird’s eye
I know the moment when you catch the blackbird’s eye,
between the bus stop six yards ahead and the arrival
of all those thoughts. Run to catch them
and keep running.
slug pencils translucent grey in the rain.
drops on drops running into drops on a leaf.
I milked everything to death.
a yellow butterfly clung to my coat
on the vauxhall bridge road and stayed
all the way down until in pity and panic
the dark arches of victoria station looming
i shook it off into a window box,
not feeling its happiness on the train.
Fiona Marshall is a writer and a commissioning editor at a non-fiction publisher. She has published 10 non-fiction books, poetry and short stories, and a novel, Absence. Her short stories can be viewed at Ether Books