Animal Rescue

To say nothing of all the moths and wasps
I’ve been opening windows for;

the sheep headlocked in the wire
of a fence,

the newt in the slippery inch
of a dog-bowl of rain,

the spider coming off and off
its wall of death in the kitchen sink

and the bat flopping the living-room floor
in a straight-jacket of dust, cobweb and hair.

***

I have angled your skulls
impossibly free,

poured you out into colour-matched weeds
at the edge of the pond,

offered you into a wineglass and out
to the forest of herbs

and taken you into my own
unravelling hands and worked you loose

in this borrowed house; let you go
on the slopes by the buzzard tree.

Now, who’s coming for me?