Clean shelter and bounding dogs between the lake

and I for miles. A queen in the fresh mountain air,

up above furrows and vines arranged in perfect

portions, a full-fat exercise book of juicy maths.

Not a mountain person with this pouch, a little twinge

in the back of the knees, cold-stuck in coffee, art,

watching, don’t care if you’re better than me, it’s nice

here. The air is rarefied and sends me dreams of

dead babies, a party at which I am weightless as a

ballerina. I rot in the pool like a lily pad, dangerous

underwater as a sister. The unicorn has popped,

grappled in fabulous rodeo, the horn gone down.

Not my Dad. I am on holiday and keep working

to fill up the silence. We hear a story about a

bricklayer whose fingers stuck fast in a pulley,

crow hard at absurdity, dress light.