Down in the halflight to the deep grass where the water’s ranting. Here’s a good track for roe deer, and they wend along these paths by the river like ghosts in the rising reeds. I see them walking in the dawn when the mist has pooled and flooded onto the low ground and their heads swim like boats.
And there he is, with his eyes half closed and his feet grouped neatly together like a dancer. He’s still beside a hawthorn tree, and the shot spins him down til he’s swallowed in a bowl of wildflowers. By the time I find him, there’s a blue cast in his eyes which makes him seem sleepy and dull. I run my hands along his back and down his thighs and feel the redness of him at source. Then I’m inside, pulling up great mounds of sour and squirming guts.
It’s almost dark when I’m done. The water dins away and there’s a bird chanting loudly in the gloom. I know it’s a sedge warbler, but I place that information to one side. There are orchids in the dullness but I don’t care to give them names.
It’s almost the height of summer; I stand to my waist and look upwards.
Bog Myrtle & Peat 