I live in a place
where everyone keeps a sunlit hill
with strawberries like blood clots
		in the bush deeps

and sheep cross in and out
		of the shadows
			like stuttered whispers

			children play in the rivers
		dogs crack into their dry bones
	soft birds clutch the thinnest tree lace
and turn round and orange at sundown

I see it all from a doorway, miles from home
read it between the spaces of empty soldiers' boots
that line the quiet hillsides

			they say bees once 
		flew flower to flower and stung
	on sunlit hills so bright we had to squint
on the way down and home

I remember reaching into the hole
	for a strawberry, slapping the bees 
		from my ears, measuring a jet 
			with an eye, a thumb, a finger

telling stories to the trees
writing nonsense onto bread
with pickleseeds and cactus thorns