"Cool wet grass,"

she said
before her walk,
yet she did not pause
to scrunch the tufts
of chilly green
in the fists of her toes,

as a skein of geese
fly their dark V
across the cobalt afternoon
and a dot-to-dot of ants
march a tickle around her ankles
and part the sagging curtains

of meadow
to where woodlice
turn the earth.
Just a tightrope tread
on glowing black,
soot feet
and smoky nose.

6th March 2013