ESSEX POETRY FESTIVAL COMPETITION 2007

First Prize
Sue Butler, Ware, Herts

Chemistry

Because my boss is ill and can't go.
I take a bus through cider orchards
to a small brewing town. We shake hands,
introduce ourselves. All day we test
levels of fructose, maleic acid, nitrosamines.
We eat supper without your wife
in a cafe by the lake. You're tall, loose limbed,
do a heart stopping imitation ­
of the door to Stalin's office slamming
in your Grandfather’s face.   ­
He'd put on his best suit and fedora, gone
to protest about the arrest of his neighbour
Osip Mandelstam. Stalin saw him
walking up the street, knew
why he'd come. The attraction is immediate,
mutual. unexpected_

Next day we drink apple brandy at lunch.
A power cut. The cafe's owner stops playing the piano,
lights a paraffin lamp. When the rain stops
you steady the ladder as I cut mistletoe
in your orchard, see an animal, too large for a dog,
sleek fur jet-black, coal_black, leave the oak copse.
It crouches low by the henhouse, long tail lashing;
with a spring and soft-arch spine,   ­
jumps the paddock gate. I hold my breath
as it drinks at the beck, vanishes
in woods. You think I'm still drunk, laugh as I insist
we search for tracks, fur on wire, the slightest
proof. (There's nothing.) On the-bus home I see it again
carrying a muntjac. It becomes a statue of itself
then runs, magnified, its reflection
ricocheting off greenhouses.