Matt Bryden's 'Brest Litovsk' from Boxing the Compass (Templar, 2013)

Brest Litovsk

Drop a shroud over a country –

food aid, shelter, nightfall,

enough to forget about it, let

it get by.

You can walk right up to it,

whip off the covers –

an angle-poise lamp under sack,

a starscape.

Silent, contoured, like camouflage

netting pulled over a tank –

there are handholds,

footfalls for the blind.

You like to imagine the conundrum –

an ant crossing a table-top comes upon

a sugar cube 1cm by 1cm by 1cm:

how far is added to its journey? –

that a shirt hung from the nozzle

of a tank might obscure it,

that you could walk across

a country covered in such a fashion –

tottering over plate, doll, bone

and crush them without noticing –

a sprawling landfill, a Milky

Way teeming with animals,

a bee in the hand.

Matt Bryden's first collection, Boxing the Compass, is available directly from the publisher for £8.99, postage free worldwide.