Serbia

Serbia

You said I should pick you up at five
but when I arrived to find you
still bullied by your work's endlessness,
I knew how little precision means
when timing the moment freedom strikes.
We sat at last, looking at the sea
the way an absconder does.
You took the cider to your lips,
toasting how the small ships passed,
their decks awash with fresh news.
Later we passed a pond where young
moorhens scarpered through the pondweed,
harvested fields skating with light,
that spot where a Saxon king was overthrown.