After several days,
between outcrops of fur
and its silvery moss remains,
a pouch, bin-bag black,
creases at the underbelly
like a baby’s wrist,
still foetal, kidney shaped,
held from dew and rain.
Woodlouse and fly families later,
flat stacked in fraying layers
dog-eared rug-matted black
leaf-like in leaves, secret
in bramble and buttercup,
ransacked, leaching back.
From Fay Musselwhite’s sequence ‘Breach’ in the Longbarrow Press anthology
The Footing. Listen to Fay Musselwhite reading this poem on location:
Longbarrow Press 