Ian Pople

The sun was tucked behind the visor as I was driving back from work; the road reached round from house

to house. A horse was grazing an out-of-season cricket pitch. They were leading sheep down

to the reservoir; hooves slipped from the bank to crumpled sky; fleecy heads bobbed out towards the middle.

The parish boundaries widen every year; another heart attack, another priest who’s...

I collected up the windfalls and packed them in a cupboard for the winter. They didn’t keep

the taut smell of bark and musty autumn but shrivelled and yellowed like the tapes

put round the trees to trap the caterpillars that climbed the trunks.

I cut-out the middleman, took the fruit to grocers’ in the precinct

and put a notice on the gate. Mother said that I could keep the money....

So what did you think with Katie on your knee as the plane turned in over the Harbour? That tame dolphins are not the same as piccolos;

that as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be; that the prickling at the roots of your hair is the light dancing from the waves

in Hong Kong Harbour, like buttons on a radio, and not the jackhammer of the heart above the baby sleeping on your...