It’s July and you’re dreaming the coastline. You’re on a road beside a ticking bed of reeds. A car approaches. A dot hits the windscreen. Flies through haze. Crash-lands in a verge. You run. Your heart is exploding. Your eyes seek a victim. You find it. Pick it up. A female reedling. Still warm as the landscape. Beady eyes shut. Scratchy claws all clenched. You clasp her frailty, as if pity would save her, but a jet of her blood from a hidden vent sprays. It fills your palm. Squirts lines on your forearm. Splashes your T-shirt. Salts your lips. Stings your eyes. It bursts into vapour. An atmospheric blackout. Clouds the summer. Blocks the sun. Slaps your face.
behind the pines
a bleeding sunset . . .
the future howls
David Alcock