7 PM POPS

7PM

eating from a bag of chips
in a hillside graveyard

7pm

the dirt piled under the turf
creeps
up
the
ivy held walls

theres crumble cracks here
in turrets of pointed cement

and green has collected 
in the flakes
in the corners
of the iron gates

their seams thick and rounded
with a hundred weatherproof coats 

and i find a shallow step 
to sit on
to stretch on

awkward like i fell there

in the 1898 & 1924
headstone shadows
of 
a 
vacant church halls 
yellow window squares



SECRET

the high street is spread
like a map 
below me

and i feel like a secret

up high
eating alone

on ground fat
with the dead



FOXES

and i feel like
an invisible feeder
a retired predator
separate forever 

from the hatchback turnover

and i feel like this
to the baby wails
that night foxes cry
like angels who fell

and cannot climb home



LANDFILL

theyre somewhere off away behind me
on landfill that rolls 
under grass like felt

like muscles under cotton

off
into
the scrappy marsh of quicksands
and
twisting creeks of stranded boats

sat unnatural and stationary 
the colour of allotment sheds 

and dotted like beacons
are teenagers used up 

dirt bike 

skeletons

essex salt marsh from the air by terry whittaker 2020/vision/rex