Jet

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I had not thought before how light the darkness is. The way it turns the solidity of brick, stone, concrete, to cut-out facades in a toy-theatre town. A cat pops into three dimensions as it steps under a streetlamp, then weaves away into grey. I wear my Great Grandmother’s mourning brooch pinned behind my lapel, a child’s wispy lock set against the jet. I half-recall a story of a Great Aunt dropping an infant on a brass fireguard. Inside the only house with curtains undrawn, a woman with long white hair approaches the window and hangs something from the rail by a fine silver thread. I stop to look: the silhouette of a raptor in stiff black card. She meets my gaze, then turns her eyes down, points to the ground outside. I step up, crouch to examine whatever lies there. A song thrush, perfect speckled breast, neck broken on the treacherous glass.

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Nigel King lives in Huddersfield. He has had poems published in Poetry Salzburg Review, Ink Sweat & Tears, and Algebra of Owls (amongst others). His pamphlet What I Love About Daleks was published by Calder Valley Poetry. He is currently completing an MA in Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University.