Outside, the one-eyed ginger cat
brawls with a stray,
and the football pitch is pockmarked
with crows. The blackberries
are pulsing towards autumn,
ink-drunk bulbs of juice growing fat.
The slugs think of little else but the sharp
eagerness of a toddler with a trowel.
The neighbours are just meat and some sex.
In August, we eat the bed sheets,
our chimneys sprout dandelions and
the pile of scrap paper for burning
grows with a technicolour lust beside
the fireplace. If I pluck a snail
from the brick wall of the lane
would it sound like a suck of summer
the little pink death
of late August
disappearing with a pop?
Header photograph © Gordon Lewis.
Erin Emily Ann Vance holds an MA in English and Creative Writing from the
University of Calgary and studies Irish Folklore and Ethnology at University
College Dublin. She is the author of five chapbooks of poetry, including The Sorceress Who Left too Soon (Coven Editions) and the novel Advice for Taxidermists and Amateur Beekeepers (Stonehouse). Her writing has appeared in Contemporary Verse 2, EVENT Magazine, Augur Magazine, Arc Poetry Magazine, Canthius, and more. Learn more at erinvance.ca.