Folly Pool, Bladon
I see the boys of Bladon in their August camp
on the fenlock meadows droughted in late summer
shouting, plunge into the current looping
through willow curtains, into the pooled bend of the river.
I feel again oozy cow-trampled dung-mud
suck at my bare feet. I launch
into the eddy and curl below the outflow
from the industrial estate at Hanborough
and if I walk past the church to the footpath crossroads
and my dogs set up a conversation
with a stranger, a smile-shape, a set of the eyes
or a phrase, might remind me of one of those boys.
Sarah Watkinson is a plant scientist with a 2012 degree in creative writing from Oxford University. Her poetry has appeared in print in Pennine Platform, Tips for Writers and in anthologies, and online at the Poet’s House, Oxford, The Stare’s Nest, Fake Poems and Waterlines. In 2014 she was second in the Swindon Poetry Festival Competition and shortlisted at the Ilkley Literature Festival Poetry competition.