by Lachlan McLeod
Report on Local Damage
The walnut tree shakes
its assent – like a tossed
marionette in a billow
of leaves between
telephone wires, its
dervishing watched
by the mild, terraced
houses – to the lifting storm.
It dangles a solitary wire,
black lightning
against the bindweed,
or a cat’s toy.
Flailing, it attests
to its own emerging,
its long exhale of oxygen;
its night cry, too, falling
and subsiding.
Anne Rouse lives in East Sussex, in sight of the English Channel. The Upshot: New and Selected Poems was a Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year in 2008. Her work has also appeared in the Guardian, London Review of Books, The Atlantic and Poetry. A new collection, Ox Eye, about personal and social change, is forthcoming. Twitter: @rouseanne.
Lachlan McLeod lives in Australia, and has a lifelong passion for books and reading. He enjoys playing video games and spending time with his cat. This is Lachlan’s first publication.