Thirsty Shadow
 
the kind of being
that won’t post
an image

Street after street, ears bright to bass and tune
of two thudding feet, gradients of breathing. But rain

is brooding. Sparse headlights, ambient drone
of cars kissing tarmac, merging

Working the land on good days, after Easter,
people would hear the breaks occur at school,
children calling as they ran into the playground,
familiar skipping rhymes rising from the babble.

Some days, the privilege of living isn’t enough.
The weight of the kettle is unbearable. You leave the teabag
forlorn in the mug, unpoured.

Slowly, ordinarily, the unimaginable happens,
lowering the past into the dark,
covering it.

If I were a ghost
I think I would shrink
and perch on wooden poles
and deco shades – get a good view
of what I am supposed to be haunting

We left the play early. It was the last day before the start of secondary school. Dad told me off for slapping the seats

There was a time when I took my radio
into the night wood and tuned its pyracantha
needle along the dial through noise jungles
to silent darkness at the waveband’s end.

Find yourself by the lake,
its icy membrane split by the long
arrow of a skein, reflected
flurry of wings, cries

bawling.