< 1
gree-ee-ee-ee-ee-een stiletto-slim pins,
slinky reeds stick-thin as a heron’s legs,
they waver like knife-blades from slits
in the water, dangerously lovely
but the pond is foul: brackish, thick-
surfaced, edges clogged with black crud
like stopped blood, with duck-shit, with a duck
long past laying eggs – fat but dead,
and me, puffy-ankled and stinking,
my bra soaked, while those minxes poke
at the sky, tall as they can, pricking at
anything scudding by till something pops.
Sue’s latest publication is of translated poetry: TWENTY POEMS BY KATHRIN SCHMIDT, Arc Publications, 2020. She has published five poetry and four prose publications and had work in The Guardian, Poetry Review, Stockholm Review, Stand, Rialto, Los Angeles Review, Trafika Europe, Lunch Ticket. She edits for Naked Eye Publishing (UK).