Jack Rowland

Jack returned to the town
and the windows’ staring depths
to find Ellen. Starlings wheeled
around dim street lamps – spiralled
up through steam from the bakery.
He stepped over a tattered fox body.

A scream and a shout from a dark alley
sent Jack running down the roads’ centre
past garden walls split by brambles
to Ellen’s door. He went to press the bell

but heard a clipped breath
from the darkness behind.

Turned to face a figure
draped in furs. Fox eyes
made his heart thump
then faded into night.

Reynadine
at your howl tears are drawn
down soft faces that crumple
at the terror outside the window –
a figure beside a whispering tree
in the garden. The dog god
the god of dog and fox
Anubis.

Jack rang the bell then sat with Ellen –
watched the rain clear through drizzle.
Broken reflections appeared in puddles.

He felt fever’s grip in his limbs.
Ellen helped him to bed –
watched horrified –
this fever left survivors’ eyes
black with bitterness.

He struggled to sit up
pointed at the flashing light on the horizon –
a greenhouse or a window.

Ellen’s voice echoed back at him –
a faded face through glass with clouds
rushing past. Jack cried out
fought with the blanket weight
as she was dragged from the room
by a fox draped in fur.

The smashed door twisted on its hinges.
Jack squinted through the bitter sting
of fever and fox. His aching eyes
looked beyond the smoking city
to a distant ridge – picked out a light.
Ellen shouted.

He followed the litter that twisted
past boarded shops to the town’s edge.
Burnt hedges dripped with mist
beside a path of churned earth.
Cages hung from creaking beams
contained emaciated horses
staring down through filthy manes.
Jack rattled padlocks – pulled at bars.

In the yard’s yellow mud
among the dead and dying
he found a horse still standing
held tight to its back
as they leapt the hedge.

Jack shouted as they ripped
through bracken and brambles
towards smoke rushing past
a building on a distant hill.

Sparks flashed of flints
in the dark wood that stank
of rotten bark. They splashed
through a foam choked stream
and clouds of ash to a blaze
reflected on metal and glass –
a tower above charred trees.

Steam screamed from pipes
working loose from metal columns.

The horse kicked up sent Jack
crashing through a window
he struggled to stand
skin and eyes itched
purple drips fizzed on white floors.

Jack fell towards a robed figure –
a cracked blackened face –
it was Ellen.

She turned to stare
at the man who was a fox.

Reynardine
howling for sacrifice.

The whole hillside shok
sent Jack Sprawling
as pipes burst filling the tower
with freezing water.

They curled up as it collapsed
into a wave that raged
under black clouds.

Jack felt the sun on his back
pressed fingers into mud
lifted himself up.

Saw a fox body torn on a tree’s thorns
and Ellen lying naked by a stream.

He bathed her face with cold water
her eyes opened
and she smiled.

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