poem

first published in Southword 46, Summer 2024

Lying foetal on the road was the tiniest body.

Mouse or shrew, I couldn’t be sure.

Crouched low, we examined the scene.

Dogs sniffed, camera clicked;

evidence to be explored later.

The pygmy shrew is common throughout Ireland.

Heading for home, I walked on, feeling

an uncanny prickle of eyes on neck.

Looking back, I saw the coroner had arrived.

One for sorrow in black and white.

Birds don’t wink but I saw his eye glitter;

scarab beetle flutter-blink, green and blue.

He gently lifted the little corpse,

life and death on the glorious wing.

The catkins quivered in the hazel tree morgue. 

Sparrows scattered. 

Susurrus. Terminus.

Shrewd.