ONCE OFF

On a burning childhood day,
in that corner of a field
where our small, slow river
arrives from Malones' farm
just where the river bank
swells into a little hill

where once, years ago,
men bare to the waist
laboured in water
to free the river
choked with weeds and silt
and in that corner
a mound of shovelled mud
became a hill

I pulled off my clothes
and ran down the slope
into the meadow.
But beneath the bare sky
a breeze touched my skin
and whispered of discovery:
What will they say if they see?

So I sneaked on my clothes
before I could be caught
and walked home wondering
at my unexpected daring.
I was eleven, maybe ten.
It did not happen again.

2001

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