Two Poems

Jammy

Five little imitations, or wooden
Intimations of killing, much redder than raspberry jam
Or the bright arrow-marks advancing across

The map of France in my father's atlas;
Pointy-headed in their brass cylinder jackets
Squeezed into a charger clip - five of them I found

Near the base of a silver birch, I think it was, each one
Longer than my little-fingers - the colour of rich
Cochineal, but it was fresh blood I thought of then

As if they'd been used already, like arrow-tips just yanked
From warm bodies, or, worse, when I couldn't sleep,
Five little stumps brought to points with a pencil-sharpener.

('In the end you will tell us everything!')
Biggest thrill in seven years, those five little beauties,
Practice bullets for loading a Lee-Enfield .303.
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