Pam Thompson
Waiting for the bulls
The first comes tamely like a saint.
His eyes are calm. His fur is white
as sanctity. He licks my palm and a faint
sound of birdsong, a smell of earth, rises
from where his hooves have been. Gentle.
Not like the second. His horns have a scythe’s
curl. When he stamps and snorts the land
buckles, olive groves burn. Tell
me, I entreat, of your pain. But there
is no reason in him. The third walks
like a dancer, is womanly yet
his man’s heart is visible like a lit-up globe.
The fourth is a typical bull.
He dies at my feet.
Pam Thompson was recently commended in the Arvon Competition and has published two pamphlets of poems: Spin (Waldean Press 1999) and Parting the Ghosts of Salt (Redbeck Press 2000)
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