He was seven and I was six, my Brendon Gallacher.
He was Irish and I was Scottish, my Brendon Gallacher.
His father was in prison; he was a cat burglar.

That fire, they said, was red as red as red
as red as a fox, your lips, a cherry;
that fire, they said spread and spread and spread,
faster than a cheetah or a nasty rumour;

Five children clasping mittens
could not hug the entire trunk.
Whole hands could hide in the folds of its bark.
James, the tallest boy in class,
could sit on a root,

From Things You Find in a Poet's Beard by A.F. Harrold

Frost spins white lines

on the lawn,

grass turns glass-like,

crisp crackle-snap

underfoot.

The biggest berries are in the centre
of a tunnel of thorny bushes.
A shark gaping wide,
promising not to nip.

The light through the blind is a poem,

the way it illuminates air.

And the shadows that fall

on the floor and the wall

are signs that a poem is there.

Thinker to Jace

If I'm not reciting a poem,

my tongue won't let me talk,

I can only bark.

But barking can't say much,