That sensuality, that innoncence..

Return
John Montague

From the bedroom you can see
straight to the fringe of the woods
with a cross-staved gate to re
-enter childhood's world:

the pines
wait; dripping.

Crumbling black-
berries, seized from a rack
of rusty leaves, maroon tents
of mushroom, pillars uprooting
with a dusty snap;

as the bucket
fills, a bird strikes from the bushes
and the cleats of your rubber boots crush
a yellow snail's shell to a smear
on the grass
(while the wind starts
the carrion smell of the dead fox
staked as warning).

Seeing your former
self saunter up the garden path
afterwards, would you flinch,
acknowledging
that sensuality,
that innocence.