Outside, herself again, effects of kill

and cure alleviated by the news,

she’s dancing early morning Braille grace notes

along the woodland ride. She pauses, high

on her consultant’s view, “Not visible,”

charmed by a ring-of-feathers fairy sign

against the broken stile. “Yon sparrow hawk,”

he answers to the question on her mind

as yet unasked; “her feeding post.” She knows

him from the local, captain’s chair, beer mug

above the bar; old gamekeeper, skin like

gnarled bark, wax jacket, corduroy, retired.

Whole different world,” to poison, trap or shoot

all compromises to his grand design:

I’d bide nest-side for hours, stock still. One day

she lighted on my gun, dark mantle, wing,

locked feet, mere inches from my gaze.” He peers

behind her fear-crazed eye and reads her pain,

admires her pulsing breast, life force within.

I let her be that spring. Next year? Lord knows!”

 
Peter Branson

Peter Branson has been published or accepted for publication by journals in Britain, USA, Canada, EIRE, Australia and New Zealand, including Acumen, Ambit, Envoi, Magma, The London Magazine, Iota, Frogmore Papers, The Interpreter’s House, Poetry Nottingham, Pulsar, Red Ink, The Recusant, South, The New Writer, Crannog, Raintown Review, The Huston Poetry Review, Barnwood, The Able Muse and Other Poetry.

Listed at Duotrope
Listed with Poets & Writers
CLMP Member
List with Art Deadline
Follow us on MagCloud