Tough one this week. Read Hughes'
The Thought-Fox and then
The Horses and then write.
Still, a challenge is a challenge, so here it is.
Brock
Surveillance is not an easy craft
but it is, nonetheless, a craft;
you may learn it and become
not the ether, which some assume –
there is no art of invisibility –
no, the secret is ordinary
become so mundane you draw no eye
whilst watching your target
stand beside them, ascending, in a lift
and with craft they will not sense your eyes
or remember one thing about you
so that seven hours later or so
behind them at the services,
retrieving their spent receipt,
they will look straight through you.
But there was a November night I foundered,
under a half-moon clear sky, village outskirts past midnight
in a wooden bus shelter with cold creosote air.
I had an unimpeded view of the gates
of the drive of the house and he could not leave
without my knowing and telling.
There was no movement, little sound
bar a murmur of leaves and a hiss of earpiece
until sudden, a clip-scratch noise
of precise regularity began to build
an image of a person approaching
and my brain sorted sound into two people
which may not be good
but need not be bad
though I was, by now, feeling cold.
Movement is the biggest show
so I am statue in shadow;
they will not see; still they come.
Now I am ears and eyes only,
this is my job, and I do it well,
yet heart rate increases and breathing stops.
The corners of my mouth rise in more than relief,
my surprise is also wide-eyed wonder,
for here is four foot badger,
bigger than in my books, rolling as he walks,
his moonlit stripes describe a world I know
of black and white, but as he passes one foot away
badger is bite, not benign.
His back, ripped with muscle, is a merle grey,
marled grey, grey I do not understand.
Badger does not see me though I wish him to,
my feet move, the world still spins
wild, I am no longer in control.
