Cyclist

I catch a fragile fledgeling
in my nearside mirror,
cradle him beside my wing.

He pedals past me,
barely balanced,
safely slipstreamed.

In the almost darkness
of an autumn dawn,
we move as one; we part.

Fence

My eyes strayed from the meeting

to the window, saw a fox slip 

through a fence - and I was outside

with her, darting, all alive, all sense.

BOY

He sits silently,

his head slung low

on setsquare shoulders,

shrugs when questioned,

fingers wrestling with a pencil

like they're fighting for an answer.

His face turns up towards me,

saying loudly, soundlessly,
from tight-mouthed lips,
"Not me. Try someone else."

He throws a ball, small

and solitary, high into the air

at the edge of the pitch
where his friends battle
with a bigger ball, together.

He's lost somewhere between 

the sky and the smack of the ball 

as it hits his hand. His smile 

says everything. He's happy 

by himself, beside his friends.

He's fast asleep, 

lying on his side,

leg cocked, arm bent

beneath his quiet head,

curled around his thoughts.

Suddenly he springs, stands

and faces me, a grin hanging 

there between us, like the wave

he gave me once across the street,

a sign of the waves the man will make.

Not His Rock

The murderous heat gave way 

to deathly cold that night.
I found a place beside the fire
and warmed my trembling hands.

Three times? I shook my head.

The servant girl beside me
saw my firelit face and said,
"I've seen you with him."
"You're mistaken," I replied.

It's not my son who has to die.

Another woman, by the gate,
caught sight of me and shouted,
"He's that madman's friend,"
an accusation I denied.

I've never felt his gentle weight.

Then a man who'd seen me
cut his cousin's ear off cried,
"You're one of his disciples!"
"I'm no follower of his," I lied.

I didn't kiss him in the garden.

As the darkness crept away,
a stabbing shaft of sunlight
caused a cockerel twice to crow
and I knew then, as now,

I'm not his rock; I'm only human.