Against the grain

Early evening, May, the sloping field –
we call it that but they all do –
slope – the grass long, lush, wet, as yet ungrazed
by the neighbour’s cows, the sun low,
hawthorn blossom and buttercups, and the one thing
needed to complete the picture is your dogs,
spaniels in stereo, crop circling,
patterning the meadow for the hell of it.
 
Tonight one dog’s lazy, doesn’t bother
to run the perimeter, to kite the rectangle,
to rootle and pounce, he can’t be arsed.
If he were two legged this would be
a duvet day, he’d, just now, have been bullied
into stretching his legs, clearing his head,
getting some fresh air before that first glass
of wine. Tail at half mast, poor attempt
 
at a wag, he spots his brother
having a good time, being as loopy as they’re
meant to be, chasing phantoms, that four
legged bounce of prairie and savannah,
He drops his boredom like a spent match,
races off, white tail a rudder through the green,
ducking and diving, catching up, carving loops,
contrails of clock grey clouds following following.

Simone Mansell Broome

published in The Voice of Women In Wales, an anthology for International Women’s Day 2010, Wales Women’s National Coalition;
in collection Cardiff Bay Lunch, 2010, Lapwing Publications,
ISBN 978-1-907276-44-6