Sport 28: Autumn 2002
Jenny Bornholdt
Jenny Bornholdt
A pastoral
There are cows
in the paddock
lying down and
standing up.
Deer he says.
Not dear as in
beloved, which is what
people mistakenly and
affectionately think, but rather
the rougher kind
with antlers and hooves. Yes
like deer but not. He is
insistent deer, deer
and there
it goes
his first word
tripping silently off
into the dark forest.
Villanelle
That summer that wouldn't go
the light was far too bright.
We didn't want to know.
But then we did. Slow,
or fast, the fight?
That summer that wouldn't go.
We couldn't know.
One thing we learned, though, was how might
fails, and that, we didn't want to know.
But then we wanted it all, blow
by crushing blow. After all, it was our right,
that summer that wouldn't go.
And so we sat it out. The glow
of light sinking into a night
we didn't want to know.
But it was the one sure thing. The only
thing we knew. And it was wrong, not right.
That summer that wouldn't go.
That summer we didn't want to know.