BEING IN THE PRESENT TENSE

Today I am not cabbage white,

tearing holes in a web, my flutter trapped.

Today I am spider, binding wings in a bundle.

 

Today I am not sparrowhawk,

pestered, driven from my treeline patrol.

Today I am jackdaw, a single-handed mob.

 

I am not today eye-line over prison wall.

Today I am poky bookshop,

my stacked spines tense to touch, spellbound.

 

Today, as one of six magpies,

I bossed an empty children’s park.

Tomorrow I shall be the glint of sun on its railing.

 

iv.2015

MUTATE

Self yet not self.

Life at the edge of life.

Universal hive-mind microbe,

multiform, penny-rife.

I am virus.

I am virus,

resistant to vaccine.

On you depend to multiply,

to share my deviant gene.

You are my host.

You are my host:

infection, say hello.

By casual rash of prefab copies

you are consumed, laid low.

I am virus.

I am virus.

My doubtful origin

unrecognised, lies dormant:

the enemy within.

Self yet not self.

v.2015