Saving Face
Corvus carone, carone,
the carrion crow

Emerge, from way beyond the pale, one day,
clenched feet an amulet about your wrist.
You’re eight, like us, you say, toy wilderness
we occupy, a monster on your fist,
outlandish night. No tinge of blue, like ink
at school, your mourning suit’s impervious
to light, beak over-egged, dry slate, twin blades
a hammer horror inches from your sight.
A giant close to, unfathomable, good luck
or ill, your camouflage, our sense is rapt.
Old war film, blazing cockpit, pilot trapped,
take in the left side of your face at last;
like shrivelled plastic, knotted string, from ear
to nostril, neck to chin. We never ask.

Peter Branson, former English teacher, higher and further education lecturer and creative writing tutor, is a poet, songwriter & singer whose poetry has been published widely. His Red Hill, Selected Poems (2013)  and Hawk Rising (2016) were published by Lapwing (Belfast). He has won prizes & been placed in a number of competitions over recent years, including a ‘highly commended’ in the ‘Petra Kenny International’,  first prizes in the ‘Grace Dieu’ & the ‘Envoi International’ & a special commendation in the Wigtown. He was shortlisted for a recent Poetry Business Pamphlet and Collection competition, was first prize winner in the 2019/21 Sentinel Poetry Book Competition (Marrowbones – published July 2021) and won first prize in the Littoral Poetry Book Competition 2020/21 (The Clear Daylight – pub. April 2021).