Mr. Pig modelling his best Sunday suit of farmyard smells,
flees from the cook’s cleaver to find himself a sow.

My heart is breaking, so I’m setting up my new Wonder Oven.
The waft of toxicity as I run it on empty for ten minutes
is a welcome distraction.

Naked feet rush
over cold pebbles,
phone-torches light
our pathway to the sea.

The first wristwatch was first worn
in 1810, despite what old turn-it-up
Flintstones episodes might have you
believe.

Alone, I drive along the midnight, winter road. My left hand at the 12 o’clock position of the steering wheel. And I coast. I let out the day’s long breath, which started out today as a sigh.

My mother is here, and might not have been,
so I hold things tighter:
the small-getting-smaller of her
running with my daughter down the beach . . .

My stubby maroon glove spent a chill night
on the velvet ridge of Clent Hills
tangled in summer-dried grasses

It’s Wednesday and / again / I’m laying pages of newspaper on the kitchen table / tipping up the food waste bin /

We cultivate the knack
of getting down on the floor and
back up three or four times each day.