Snake
It might have been the library I was heading for
after I drew Sandra and Nick’s curtains. They’re away
and we’re good neighbours, each other’s caretakers
so to speak, but when I open my front door there’s
fresh earth all over the step and if I look closely
I see him curled up beneath the kitchen window
behind the camellia, next to a hole, very still.
He might be sleeping. Or dying. Or dead.
And truly I was afraid. Is there a network of tunnels
running underneath the house? I call the council.
No one picks up. I go next door – pull their curtains –
call the council. No one picks up. I fetch a big bucket
of water. Two. And he moves. He doesn’t look great bent
over, an old stripy sheriff wobbling to the saloon
one last time. He gets to the gate, looks at it.
The catch? It’s too high for him to reach...he staggers
into the hedge. Later I find him curled up between
the privet and the back tyre; read on the web
about a badger that broke into a cottage in Wales,
wrecked the place. MI5 agent, I block the entry
to the tube station: some plant pots, three bricks, a cobble
from the beach. Go back that evening, he’s gone.
Call yourself a poet, you say, the morning after,
and me in T shirt and shorts for the heat.
Jeff Skinner
If you have any thoughts about this
poem, Jeff Skinner
would like to hear them.
