The Safe Places

 

They are places of danger,

all of them. Even here

on the homeward path where the road forks

 

making a triangle out of Nowhere

you could be lured by tall unkindly irises

to fall and drown.

 

In the woods where bluebells

hide the beetle and the hedgehog

we stand by the mouse-grey stream

 

where they have put up barbed wire

so that even here it is safe no longer.

Turn. Look on the wrong side.

 

The safest place is not where I said.

The child knew and she has kept the secret.

One day I will find you.

 

 

 

Frances Thompson