I step into the darkness as the last light fades.
The stars are not there yet. The campfire gleams
in grey ash. And I am alone with the night.

Down the great hill we plunged,
not scared of picking up speed
because that was the point,
running fast as a horse.

We’ll find the beach, but first through
the flowering wood, there’s celandine,
little suns of spring, casting.

I stop reading

but learn the alphabet again,
live on boiled eggs, phonetics,
broccoli heads

Halfway to the island, the engine falters
and every cup trembles in its ring.

I’ve been staring at the blank page of this notebook for an hour. I close my eyes and breathe in for four, hold for four and out for eight, then repeat three times.

We slept as best we could on the night train.
Leaving the station we walked empty streets

aimlessly until turning a corner
there it was, silent and vast as the moon.

On the pitch of the roof
a jackdaw holds a twig
longer than its wingspan—
do corvids feel pride?

go back, small cell, atom
slit by light. It takes up 
space, an ocean, a planet, a