During Slaughter by Daniel Fraser

During Slaughter

The days go on elsewhere,

in the shortened spaces between sunshine and dark.

Still, the small spasms of living:

I watch the fresh lawn, with its buzz-cut,

flinch with little frogs;

terns on a grey sea wash their heads.

Bramble slowly covers the bricks and shrubs.

The turn of summer, with its excess

children, winds down, a few embers blown on.

A dragonfly trembles—

red-iridescence on the trellis and thick leaves,

the idea of an aeroplane

stored for a million years

in its sleek shape, fragile power outlined.

Later, above the coast and crowds,

a jet screams against the sun.

The cross-shaped shadow is plunged

in flint and sand.

We look up and go blind.

It will go elsewhere to pour its fire.

These evils never last.

A child playing with white shutters pulls them shut.

Daniel Fraser is a poet and critic from Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire. The author of Lung Iron (ignitionpress), his work can be found in: Cyphers, The Drift, Los Angeles Review of Books, London Magazine, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry London, Stand and elsewhere.