Clouds & Green Police

It's charity that ate the wolf, they say.
Last night a black sky ate the moon
and left a naked swimmer curled and frozen in the ice.
In summer horses dream of grass. Other times
a boy with a painted hand keeps the world shut,
light clings to every object, rifles stand along the wall and
smile, the dirt has writing on its face
describing the pleasure of light on a wall
and days where the sky is dry and thin. In summer
the trees are full of babies hanging down like fruit.
Inside the house, the cats are dancing on the
polished floor. In the evenings, robins move across
the grass hunting; they cross into the shadows and return
as if it were nothing, clouds and green police,
a village gone inside the river, a change from a dry night
to a careful patient motionless night


Robert Gregory | Mudlark No. 17
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