Faber New Poets 2

Song an 'arrogant little tool,' that was Migdale. All five foot four of him. Always scratching his head and looking pained and adjusting himself.

The last time I saw him, it was his well-fed silhouette straddling the gate in half-light, 'too busy' to come in good time for the birth, and 'too poor' for the vet, instead he came like a thief in the night, shooing the crows and draping an inverse, eyeless thing over his shoulder with disdain like a soiled boa.

As he sloped away, his back grew dark with burst caul, the slipped halo of that 'poor fellow.' Goodbye, little song.

Goodbye, Migdale. They said in the village you were an absentee landlord, a shirker, a fool.

But nightfall and sun-up wait at your beck and call.