Making Money In Wombwell
 

 
Morning.
Sow seeds for cash crop of songbirds to sell to Gypsies.
Prime pressure pads, conceal cages cunningly woven with leaves
wound around their bars, high up in the boughs of apple trees.

Afternoon.
Put black bitch Patterdale Terrier into barn after barn, farm after farm.
Face a crosshatch of rat bite scars she whirls in dust and straw; gore flecked,
setting teeth on edge, with her shrieks amongst the squeals.

Evening.
Two Robins. Two Wrens, tiny tails like unfurled fans: Blue Tit, Goldfinch,
Blackbird, liquid eyed behind a sprung shut cage door,
swelling, swelling the orchard with song.

David Smedley

If you have any comments on this poem, David Smedley  would be pleased to hear from you.