‘Where the chimpanzee is able to recognise that the mirror is an epistemological void, and to turn his attention elsewhere, the child has a perverse will to remain deluded.’

LACAN

1.

A cold grey day in early March.
Travelling with a swarm of them
We’re two of the conspirators
While these implacably cheerful children
Cross the bald ground. In the bushes
The five-year-old finds a dead fox:
‘It smells like rotten fish.’

Hanging back, watching, and hearing their voices –
They arrive as if from nowhere
Travelling over the threadbare carpet of sound.
I wasn’t sure I was still there beside you,
Flying apart we flew along together
As if caught in the same storm.
Much later we’ll return to the grove.
...