Our garden was spirals of green - Squeeze-through bean tunnels rigged with bee stings, skinny mud paths that grazed knees and bloodied hand-heels when it rained. The field was neat rows of gold - Wide tracks made-good with stone, sipped dry by birch and tall oak. Peacocks and emperors flickered, fritillary swooned to a stop on damp skin - Ragged commas were caught breaths in bramble and …I listened... to Old-Man-Brown - snoring and mythical, to the click-click of chopped veg, to kids playing, to men coming home.
I ran, scrambled the bank, grabbed hold of chain-link, crashed into the garden. I knelt by the pen, let dogs lick my hands, gave armfuls of long grass to rabbits. I danced between chickens, beeped back at quails and avoided wry-smiley ferrets. I made it back before Mum needed to yell, shouted out, swirled my limbs clean from the barrel - Excited because, in a couple of weeks it’d be teeming with coppery fish and I’d give them ant-eggs and worms. I shoved open the door, brushed past dead things. That’s what we did: Fed them until it was time.