top of page

Scarecrow Somme
‘And they are bread in the bodies of the young … ’
from Armistice by Paul Dehn
They came with their machines
and ploughed them into fields:
caught a whole army off guard.
Stretched and strewn like a skin
of gold on harrowed earth –
all the stuffing gone out
of arms and legs and bellies.
I tread handfuls of straw
I suppose were fingers;
cup the severed wheat ears
that didn’t hear them coming.
Only these sounds remain:
the crickets clocking time,
some traffic swishing by
in a long escape of air.
Birdless, unholy air.
bottom of page