Bird Watching

Down by the stilled green water
that offers no clue to depth,
except that there is enough
for some heartless bastard
to drown six puppies in a sack,
I wait, as I hear a dragonfly
throbbing like a motorbike
in amongst the high reeds
where a sodden half-shoe
lies like a capsized boat.

Then there is the sudden flash.
A blue and orange streak
over the water.

I would like to give it a name,
but I don't know the names of birds,
- Except the obvious ones -
like robins on Christmas cards.
Oh, and the black and white magpie.
But that only because of Susan Stranks
and an urgent early teenage desire.

If they had made a TV show
with some nubile young woman
who fed boys' over-eager fantasies
and had called it Kingfisher,
perhaps then, I could - with confidence -
name, or not name, that sudden bright
blue and orange flame across water
and then turn to go about my day.