Crossing The Road

The bus is packed:
Mobile phones'
Call sounds quiver
The steamy air.
Half-term teenagers
Snuggle about conversations
Of parties and propositions.

A whoop rocks the aisle.
Old ladies whose hair
Took just as long to prepare
And looks like it came from another planet
Rustle their Daily Mails.

The bus swerves.
Young and old crane to see
A fox
Run across the road.
They all sigh
As this wild thing
Fleetingly flashes
Across the route
Between shops and home.

It must have been hungry
To brave the rush hour.

I get home and tell Mum. She says
"Bastard! That's someone's hen's gone".
Mum never goes to the town:
She's afraid of all the people.
She cuts her own hair.

Squddling through the duck delved puddles
On the lawn
We shut up the birds
Early, uneasy.
The traffic hisses.

Next day outside our house
There's a red smear of fur
At the side of the road,
Mouth in a snarl of pain or fear.

"Oh God! The poor thing"
Mum says, and looks away.
I want to bury it
But it's crow food, now
Their hungry eyes tell me
Not to interfere
With Nature