(meno)pausing at the duckpond

gree-ee-ee-ee-ee-een stiletto-slim pins,

slinky reeds stick-thin as a heron’s legs,

they waver like knife-blades from slits

in the water, dangerously lovely

but the pond is foul: brackish, thick-

surfaced, edges clogged with black crud

like stopped blood, with duck-shit, with a duck

long past laying eggs – fat but dead,

and me, puffy-ankled and stinking,

my bra soaked, while those minxes poke

at the sky, tall as they can, pricking at

anything scudding by till something pops.

BIO

Sue’s latest publication is of translated poetry: TWENTY POEMS BY KATHRIN SCHMIDT,

Arc Publications, 2020. She has published five poetry and four prose publications and had work

in The Guardian,Poetry Review, Stockholm Review, Stand, Rialto, Los Angeles Review,

Trafika Europe, Lunch Ticket. She edits for Naked Eye Publishing (UK)