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Anna Wigley

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Hawker's Help

(To Clem)

When I was nine and wore black hair to my waist
you took me hawking.
On my thin wrist I carried your smallest kestrel
down blank suburban streets to the woods beyond.

Through the thick belled glove
the pincer grip of the birds fear
passed into my own.
She quivered proudly, all sickle curves,
eyes stabbing the air.

When we left the grey ribbons
of gulleys, and the fields and trees
skirted out below, you took the bird,
letting her spin of f from the reel of your wrist,
skimming the air in a sudden arc of power
to the highest branches.

I can see the loose slimness of your hips,
the quickened roundness of your violet eyes
as you swung the lure high above your head
in widening circles, your strong young arms
tensed to the swooping rhythm of the rope.
Somewhere out there, a bird watched
in an ecstasy of calculation until
with a sudden streak of wheeling speed
it struck home, catching in mid-sweep
the fist of meat.

Walking back through the grainy half-light,
the bird’s head hooded with a pigskin pouch
dainty as an infanta’s purse,
you were tall and straight as a dusky southern prince,
your glossed hair leaved like feathers.

 

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