Isobel Dixon

Vision

At first you think they're birds,
swooping low
into the summer dusk
when the long hot day's distilling
means the garden's only roses, roses –
most beautiful with your eyes closed,
shut against the tumbled
brickwork and the weeds –

but soon it will be dark
and from the high, thin squeaks
you'll know they're bats,
as the stars' spores
swell, promising more,
poking their green-white light
through the black soil of the sky.

Born in Umtata, Isobel now works in London as a literary agent, mainly on the behalf of South African writers. This is her first appearance in The Wolf. She recently won the Oxfam Poetry Competition, and her first collection Weather Eye was published in 2001.