Playing in Manvers Lake by Paul Brookes
What children do
When I was a child,
I loved all of life, the trees and streams, birds,
their glossy flight, furtive animals barely glimpsed,
yet when I was a child,
I caught minnows in the pond.
When I was a child,
I took them home and watched them swim
round and round in jam-jarred space.
When I was a child,
I loved their silver scales,
the glints of blue and red,
and when I was a child,
I watched them turn about, gaping mouthed,
until they floated belly up,
enveloped in trailing clouds of fungus.
Now I am an adult,
I forget what the child thought,
watching captives slowly die.
Now I am an adult,
I watch my minnows, grown brown and slow,
wise as salmon in the deep pond,
and I leave them be.
Jane Dougherty
Bios And Links
Jane Dougherty lives and works in southwest France. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her poems and stories have been published in magazines and journals including Ogham Stone, the Ekphrastic Review, Black Bough Poetry, ink sweat and tears, Gleam, Nightingale & Sparrow, Green Ink and Brilliant Flash Fiction. She blogs at https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/ Her poetry chapbooks, thicker than water and birds and other feathers were published in October and November 2020.
