Never Force Them to Swim
The boy was a rat which is why I loved him,
the third of three vermin born to an x-ray technician.
Always short of breath,
twitching his nose,
climbing and chewing on ropes,
he worked without success at Boots
until he bit the manager
and had to move into a caravan
at the foot of his brother-in-law’s garden
where ants spurt
dedicated to
their work of
bringing small
heaps of soil
from under
the garden to
make room for
each other.
Do ants ever really love each other?
On holiday in Paris,
my bicycle was mangled by the bus.
I told myself, never again!
I fled the city.
I led a lonely life at the vineyard.
The wine tasted of antifreeze
but with its help
I briefly married the rat
until feeling pestered by his presence
I left him for an unmown verge near Lowestoft.
Waiting for
the divorce
it’s not so much
the place
I love as
being here when
the rain comes
and knocks the petals
from the poppies.
Broccoli
I squat to
be closer to
lift softly
each broad
broccoli leaf
to look
for the yellow
clusters of
eggs left by
cabbage whites
totter through
the air in pairs
over the ditch
and above the veg
patch I scrape
away not
too roughly
leaving behind
on the leaf
a residue that
darkens the green
the vehement
caterpillars
would consume
Adam Warne is a poet from Suffolk. His pamphlet Suffolk Bang was published by Gatehouse Press in 2018. He has an MA in Creative Writing from UEA and a PhD in Creative Writing from Roehampton. He can be found on Twitter at @adamwarnepoet
andotherpoems.com 