by Jane Frank
The hills are large, round animals,
smooth-skinned in the fading
light. I am pushing the boundaries,
coming out of the clouds. A whole
continent of them run beside
the car, like improbable guides.
Stone walls scribble their way
ahead across moorland, broad
slopes teeming, edged with a fuzz
of willow herb. A lone bird wheels
high over a deep valley and far
away, there are indecipherable
words despatched in snow. The
years since have run fast, angles
hard to fathom. It occasionally
occurs to me that somewhere
else, always, it is late summer, day
becoming night, rabbits running.
Previously published in Wide River (Calanthe Press, 2020).