Apricot Press

Russet skinned familiar of the understorey,
Victorian curiosity on the run from captivity
concealing your freedom in tunnels of brambles.

Shape shifter
hog head hugging the scent lines
high-haunched hunchback
evading the eye line
a silhouette sketched
vanishing act.

Furtively creeping your crepuscular journey
encrypted in ground cover as danger approaches
waiting your time in that cage of branches

then with a dog sprint
breaking out

into the open
                      and the open
                                             and the open

Cities of arks, semi-circles of corrugated
iron half-submerged in abstract squares,
electric fences knitting the seams.

Sows rootle the ground to wasteland
grind their teeth on unearthed stones,
protect their young against rats who

dare at thresholds, lured by the smell
of farrowing, the slimy parcels of pink
taking a chance against their mother’s bulk.

All this against a sky so wide it smudges
horizons and foxes who wait by the wire,
time their runs, gambling on gaps in the current.

Photo credit: Amee Fairbank-Brown