‘This may be the last time you will ever see me’
Said the invisible man to his invisible friends,
And he donned a hairy tweed overcoat,
Painted his extremities pink
And disappeared before their very eyes.
In the darkness behind the pigshed
Something moved, something small
And sad and beautiful; making
No sound she reached up the concrete wall
And eased her nubile self through
The aperture where the sow’s breath
Clammily lingered.
A large tweed overcoat lay stretched
Like a pall across the dead leaves;
The wood dropped like a stone thrown in a well
And morning broke in the field outside.
Visible, he emerged through the lightpath
In the trees. Turning towards the low farm
In the dip, he felt the slithering cold
Droplets of dew run between his toes,
Tingling, full of dawn.
She heard the pad pad of stealthy feet
In her strawstrewn nest, and the sow’s
Pacing grunting warned her of another,
An unknown, reaching into the sweaty
Half-dark, fingering her sighing mind.
Wondering, she rose tall and flat in the
Concrete corner, and waited.
His vacant eyes widened as the gloom
Increased, and he stood, accustoming
His vision to the dark. The pig, sensing
Man, rushed to the deep recesses
Of the shed, and turned, flaring.
She moved in the straw, helpless in
Attraction, colour flooding in turmoil
Among her dangling nerves.
Shedding his visibility, he made a
Magical run towards her, and in the
Last seconds Life dissolved into All.
The sow sidled into the bright day,
Its eyes squinting with the light. It lay down,
Radiantly pink, and hoped for another dawn.
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