Body
By Alice Oswald
This is what happened
the dead were settling in under their mud roof
and something was shuffling overhead
it was a badger treading on the thin partition
bewildered were the dead
going about their days and nights in the dark
putting their feet down carefully and finding themselves floating
but that badger
still with the simple heavy box of his body needing to be lifted
was shuffling away alive
hard at work
with the living shovel of himself
into the lane he dropped
not once looking up
and missed the sight of his own corpse falling like a suitcase towards him
with the grin like an opened zip
(as I found it this morning)
and went on running with that bindweed will of his
went on running along the hedge and into the earth again
trembling
as if in a broken jug for one backwards moment
water might keep its shape
Notes:
This poem appears in Falling Awake, © 2016 by Alice Oswald. Published with permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.