by Bridget Sprouls

In the torn evening, joggers and pensioners move around.

I watch your yellow eyes—

two distant, tiny beads. That wing is all wrong.

Like a sash it crooks across your breast.

A girl with her hair yanked back decides not to see

and you throw your body, ruined though it is, to one side.

Will those friends of yours not flap down and if not croak the rites

then nod as you nod? Who made them

so callously wise as not to roost this night with you

on the wet sod tempting foxes?

I imagine first light, a rustling of leaves

being slung in a pile, your last horizontal blink.