'Pale Ails' and 'Foxes'

By Ben Harding

Foxes

In the lukewarm streetlight, foxes—

one then two, now four,

eight eyes like the Dipper stare

a soul into my side.

Ask for change I do not

carry, and nose the plastic

—rinsed for reuse—that

spills out from blue bins.

Ribs flex under spoilt hides

as they slink, a limp for one,

dog-eared ear another.

Those lights tilt, snuff, I hear

a punctured liner rustle.

It was too heavy a charge, anyhow.

Pale Ails

Amidst the pale ale drinkers. Fresh-shaven

p’haps, fresh-faced, still I drink Landlord just the same.

I’ve identity here, and half my savings

behind the bar, and the landlord knows my name

and when a local boy asks it, I du-

tifully provide, yet still always rehearsed

at me: ’s strange name for someone like you.

I wonder if Hirshal’d be better or worse,

and know that when I once again appear

with my home-county cortege all in tow,

no matter how often we all frequent,

it’s I who’ll draw the lingering, heavy leer.

Played cricket with a Hirshal—left-arm slow—

‘Herfan’, the coach would call him, which now I resent.

BEN HARDING hocked it about a hundred times but always got it back. 

Art by Stacey Gledhill