There was sadness in the creatures, and blotched fur.
We considered the options of prods, probes, questions
but the droop of their eyes, ears and silence told
that we were the cause of their sorrow. How furry
our nights had once been, what warm blankets
of together had once covered us, what intimacies
of teddy-bears and dolls had the world held
before the talk ceased to be imaginary
and turned into financial reports, peer reviews,
collusions of hadrons, long trudges in the mud
of gossip, back-scratching, bad breath, prose.
Once I woke from a dream of pot-plants screaming
as they died at their owners' hands: yet the creatures
remain, wrapped in their sadness, like shrouds.
--
David Bircumshaw
Website and A Chide's Alphabet http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
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