Rumours of nightingales
on the heath
draw me in,
my eyes and ears wide open.
Drawing blank at dusk,
I dare the dangerous dawn
that breaks like a wound
over the grey bay –
I push apart the brambles
but the birds hide well,
their tiny camouflage
too cunning for a
shadowy figure like me.
Maybe I am too late
and they have slipped
over the border,
flown back to Africa,
singing their secrets all the way:
spies on the run,
glad to have escaped
the torture of wintry prison here,
another assignment
successfully completed.