Small

Small

Small dogs are made to fill the

hollow behind your knees,

the crook formed when you’re

lying down having an afternoon nap.

Small children are made to

lie against your chest, ribs,

midriff, lap, held in the arms,

relaxed, softly snoring.

A dog behind the knees, back to

back; a child asleep in front, both

bodies to body adapting, both

asleep, sotto voce breathing.

Flash Fiction

Running and Waiting

The rhododendron, paler than white, leans in the heat towards the path which is sunk below the road. The glistening heat has melted the rhododendron petals off the branches; they settle as browning water lilies in the grass. But the grass doesn’t pour down towards the path because it isn’t water.

The path is a deep dip, so that a child can race with her dog down one side and make it up the other before running out of puff.

The child runs down the path, her knots of knees pumping past faster than the eye can grasp. There is a splash, but this isn’t water. The dog pulls on the lead and drags the child, strains to move forward. The child’s grazed knees bleed in rivulets. She pushes herself upwards, stands, sobs for a moment.

Calls to the dog. Calls the dog names.The dog sits on the hot pavement, indifferent. English is not his first language.

The girl dabs at her knees with a tissue: the heat of the sun is already drying the rivulets of blood. The dog waits, as dogs do. The pavement is warm. Waiting isn’t difficult. Boredom is not in his experience, or vocabulary.

The grazes sting in the heat. The child brushes the stings aside in her mind. Self-pity is not in her experience, or vocabulary.

This story first appeared online in the February 2012 Flash Frontier anthology: Heat. 

Fatherhood

A recent poem....from just a few weeks ago. 

Last time I saw this young man

he was callow, naive, could

put his foot in whatever was

in-put-footable.  Now, he holds the

hand of a curly-headed three-year-old boy,

grinning, both of them grinning,

delighted to be in each other’s life,

the ginger-haired, short-cropped father,

the curly-topped lightning-smiling

boy.  ‘And we’ve just had number two,’

says the father, shining.  ‘Just

three weeks ago.’