Receipt

The dish water is inked a thin maroon

from coffee and rabbit’s blood, the colour

of a winter tree at sunset. The butcher told me

it had been wild, not farmed. I took this from him

with my change and I was pleased.

Tonight the deer are away again,

through the window as the mist unspools

and I think as always at this time

of the headless carcase on the lane.

I wonder if they’ve left me on their own

or whether they were killed as I know happens

here for sport, though not by licence and not

in daylight. Some nights if you can’t sleep

you hear the cars in the field. Part of me hopes

that this is how it went, that the body

was one of many, and they haven’t gone

to other gardens, others’ lanes,

to bring blessings on the homes of my neighbours

like the shadowy little gods of evening that they are.