In my thinking of you

You leap in a meadow

or some sprung boggy marsh

glowing like buttered honey toast

sliced lemon, spicy tea

and the sun –

you shield your eyes with fingers and thumb

a hover fly landing, as I wish to land

on your physical outstretched hand.

I tell my sister about the heron

the memory swelling

how it was gone by the time we reached

the river.

She jokes about us in our canvas shoes

filling with pond puddles and mudhole soup

and the thought of the frogs!

makes her shiver.

I burrow into bed

her kneeling beside it

reeling from this: my happy day.

That’s what she calls it

as she strokes the blush from my cheeks

wondering

out loud

when she’ll get to meet you.

But it’s hard to hear her –

I’m back in the grass

the sun has set.

We laugh as we tread

trying to dodge the snails in the dark

wading the barracks of their tiny army

alarmed

squirming at each murderous crack of a shell.

---

Published by The Poetry Business as part of Abbie's poetry pamphlet 'Threadbare' in June 2020. To find out more or to buy the book, see here.

First published in 2019 in the anthology "Whirlagust" by Yaffle Press, a new independent publisher of poetry.

yafflepress.co.uk/anthologies