the ghost

The Ghost.

My dog had been knocked down by a car,
still she lay, blood on her snout, thought
she was dead, put her in a large bin liner
drove through the night into the highland
where she was born and I thought of Edith
Piaf, dead in the back of a van, and driven
from Marseille to Paris in the night.

In the corner of a potato field I dug a hole
while the dog got out of the sack and sat
watching me wandering what I was up to.
When I saw her I thought she was a ghost
shocked fell into the hole and bumped my
head on a stone, woke up when the dog
licked my face trying to save my life.

I was a tired first- world- war soldiers sat
on the edge of a Flanders’ trench listening to
the silence, Christmas Eve, cannons boulder
had ceased only their ominous echo rang in
my ears, men from both side of the war zone
sang carols into the cold unforgiving night.
“War’s over Bambi let’s go home and eat. . .