Brackenbury, Alison

England, (b. 1953)

Outbreak

  1. Then I lived on an island.
  2. Though the ploughland ran like the sea
  3. There was scarcely an animal in the fields
  4. Of my empty Eastern county.
  5. Sour disinfectant bridged the Trent
  6. So foot and mouth washed round, then went.
  7.  
  8. I stare into a photograph
  9. Which spins and glows on screen,
  10. Heart crossed by veins of snowflake,
  11. Hot summer’s blue, kind green
  12. As Christmas trees, its wings and shine:
  13. This virus, breathed from cows and swine.
  14.  
  15. The digits tap along the wires
  16. Into the crowded town,
  17. Our pony trots on western hills,
  18. Beside her, pigs flop down
  19. In sun; ears ripple, like a drum.
  20. Birds cross the hedge. The plague will come.

 Alison Brackenbury. From the webzine Snakeskin #77, April 2002.

About the Poet:

Alison Brackenbury, England, (b. 1953) is a poet. She has published nine collections of poems with Carcanet, which have won an Eric Gregory and a Cholmondeley Award.

She is also enthusiastic about Twitter, where she posts (often crooked) photographs of the flowers, birds and hills of Gloucestershire, where she still spends much time.

On Instagram, she is alisonbrackenbury2 (something went wrong with account number one – probably through haste). But, in all her amateur corners of the Web, you will find poems, which, luckily, keep their own time. [DES-09/19]

Additional information: