so this is where you live

your sitting tenant life

in damp lower ground accommodation

 

I nearly missed your army fatigue

autumn leaf coloured camouflage

and those headlamp eyes that

see sky and ground simultaneously

in that corner where we keep

the compost near the dead wood

 

perhaps you are planning

a forage or awaiting

an unsuspecting insect

your turned down mouth

lips tight as a letterbox

nonplussed by my presence

 

I watch you squat dry and rooted

still as a grave contemplating

the smooth-skinned hop of frogs

and their urgency to be kissed

 

First Published in The Weekly Avocet #243, August 2017