I have seen you thread yourself through our neighbour’s fence,

then tread across the wall of the fishpond, your delicate dance

by the trellis where the rain has ruined the clematis. At last

you stop, freeze, angle your curious face in my direction, rest

there, I think, come closer, because your presence is a gift.

I have a premonition of the next frames of this film: the swift

leap off the patio, the slink through the wrought-iron gate.

And so it is, but not before your muzzle quivers and you treat

yourself to the scent of the change of the season, to my human

essence. The way you carry your bones – like a woman

uncertainly picking her way home through a badly-lit street

from the house of the lover she was unlucky to meet.

© Pam Thompson

Picture 10434280, pen and ink and gouache by Raymond Sheppard, mid-20^th century, image copyright Mary Evans / Raymond Sheppard Collection

Pam Thompson is a poet, lecturer, reviewer and writing tutor based in Leicester. She has been published in The Rialto, Mslexia, The North, Butcher’s Dog, Poetry Salzburg, The Interpreter’s House and  Under the Radar among others. Her collections include The Japan Quiz (Redbeck Press, 2009) and Show Date and Time (Smith|Doorstop, 2006). Pam has a PhD in Creative Writing and her second collection, Strange Fashion, was recently published by Pindrop Press. Pam is a 2019 Hawthornden Fellow.