Poem

Wooden almost, the way he waits
in the distance for my footstep, his
starting gun. Way up on the dyke.

Down flat he goes, traces lightning
over the field, slams himself
home safe to his whirlpool of grass.

I don't want to hunt you, hare; I want
to share your wide-open house, I want
to read what you wrote in the field.

I want to feel your golden-grey fleece
but ever between the hand and the hare
the lie and the ruin crowd in.

Copyright © 2002 Anna Enquist All rights reserved
from In a Different Light: Fourteen contemporary Dutch-language poets
Rob Schouten and Robert Minhinnick, editors
Seren Books / Dufour Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission