by Shane Larkin
He soaks up days and air.
I nose around in mud with lugworms and little ghosts of things. Cattle are anchored like spitballs on sloping fields; trees suck leaf-mould and lose their minds.
The ghosts nudge me, don’t want me to miss the end – I should say goodbye, they say.
Ancient stories held under his tongue, prayers scattered downwind, taut brain wobbling on its little root. He bends, now, blackly spills himself empty, shrouded in rain-steeped earth gloam. My eyes are closed. They tell me he is sprouting the new world in his stomach, and I want to believe them.