Stray

You can't always tell a
dog by the person
pulling its lead;
some dogs are
stray: they don't wear collars,
and answer no one's

call save that of the Wind.
They're searching for space
in archaic
tenements,
chasing after the scent
of a bitch called Dream.

When I decided to post mainly poems this year I had to choose a starting point and, for me, the obvious place was #453. I began numbering my poems when still at school and that’s how I’ve continued to save each new poem, under its number rather than its name. Yesterday I wrote #1087.

‘Stray’ is a significant poem for me. I’ve always regarded it as my first adult poem, the first poem in which I recognised my “voice”. It was first published in Street Games and Other Poems by the Curlew Press probably in 1978 in a slightly different layout; I was young and so pleased to see my work in print I let the editor have her way. It’s a rather sorry-looking pamphlet (the quality of some small press stuff back then left a lot to be desired) but published is published.