Reading on Holiday

by Meg Bateman

With no electricity
and satisfied by yesterday’s walk,
we use the morning light
to read – four fair young heads
and my grey one
bent over our books.
We are together yet apart,
at different times,
in different places –
Howard’s End, St Petersburg,
Japan …

At our feet, two dogs and a cat
twitch their ears at a buzzing fly,
at the turning of each page.