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.