Wolf
though our ancestors hunted her kind
through highland rainforests
ten thousand years ago.
though nettles grow up over hill scars,
through a stand of dock
she watches, curious.
boys lay a perimeter of piss around a canvas tent.
triangled ears turn
to the sounds
of their small, safe deaths
their tenderness.
a wolf is spotted aboard a train in Brussels.
in pubs, on the Polish-German border
instead of musk deer
staghorn ferns are nailed to wooden trophy boards.
she leaves a boggy stink in stairwells near Glasgow Green.
the treads never wash clean of her.
watchfires linger
after three pregnant wolves are shot on the way to France.
near the Forest of Dean, a dog walker raises the alarm.
when night blots out the purple of pennyroyal
the search for wolves is abandoned
among brambles so thick
a pizza box is a smudge in the surveillance footage.
the DNA profile captured in her scat
is tagged, lone female.
she leaves a paw print between the daylilies.
the shadow of an overhead power line marks her flank.
(Ignitionpress)
This is an incredible pamphlet of poems that gather round themes of difficult emigrations and resettlings, of painful dislocations and new beginnings, homesickness and resilience. Alive to the cultural contradictions between homes old and new, and the heart-work of maintaining relationships across this divide, the poems welcome, with wry humour and tender sensitivity a whole host of speakers. These voices are unforgettable, like the grandmothers asking “Who fed you eggs before you were two?” and, uproariously, “would you rather be a meal or a snack?” Burnley’s language and powers of description are hauntingly beautiful. This pamphlet is one of kindness, erudition, humour and consummate skill.
