This morning

This morning we have killed a blackbird, a rabbit, a hedgehog and a deer with our hurrying machines. The small animal inside me quakes and grieves.

Sunny morning

Someone has sprayed 'I love Reading' in orange on the green bridge. Nearby a man sleeps on a bench, an empty bottle of superstrong cider beside him. The bottle is the deep blue of late evening. The man's knees are drawn up towards his chest.

Crow cries

Crows swagger back and forth across the roof, crying out to each other. A blackbird hops lightly across the carpark, listening instead to the whisper of air over his feathers.

by the path

a scrap of horse chestnut shell does a very good impression of a new-born hedgehog

Gulping water

Gulping water, I picture it trickling down inside me, seeping through organ walls, travelling in my blood to my eyelids and my fingertips: turning into me.

halo

the music of raindrops on plastic

and become quiet

I lie on my back on the grass and become quiet. One by one, they step forward. The pale chopped circle of the moon. Honeysuckle scent edging the breeze. Swallows weaving counterpoint, and above them an aeroplane in poor imitation. And next door's roses, punching holes into the evening, as red as the reddest lipstick.